E 
666 

Rie 


BANCROFT 
LIBRARY 

THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


i 

RADICAL  RECONSTRUCTION 
u 

ON  THE  BASIS  OF 

ONE  SOVEREIGN  REPUBLIC, 


WITH 


DEPENDENT  STATES  AND  TERRITORIES, 

UNIFORMLY  CONSTITUTED  THROUGHOUT  THE  PUBLIC  DOMAIN, 

AND  WITH  THE 

CORRUPTIONS  OF  PARTY  POLITICS  ABOLISHED, 

BEING 

^IST    ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  AT  AN  INTERIOR  TOWN  IN  NEVADA, 
AND  PRINTED  BY  BEQUEST  AS 

AN  APPEAL  TO  ALL  AMERICANS 


FOB 


NEW   NATIONALITY    WITH 

THE  SOUTH  AND  RUSSIAN  AMERICA, 


LOOKING  ALSO  TO  UNION  WITH 
MEXICO    AND    CANADA. 


SACRAMENTO: 

RUSSELL  &  WINTEBBUBN,  PRINTERS — UNION  BOOK  AND  JOB  OFFICE. 

1867. 


BANCROFT 
LfBRARY 


CONTENTS. 


Contents , Page  iii 

Preface...  "     iv 


Prophecy  and  the  Republic Page  v 

The  Kingdom  Coming "    vi 


GENERAL  STATEMENT  OF  THE  SUBJECT. 


The  Kingdom  of  Canada.- Page  1 

The  Reconstruction  we  need "    2 

Principles  for  immediate  action "    2 

Obstacle  Johnson's  Attitude — Deposition  neces- 
sary  ; "     8 


Present  Precautionary  Measures  Specified Page  4 

Spirit  of  the  South "    4 

Such  a  spirit  natural "    6 

When  magnanimity  will  be  wise u    5 


PREPARATORY  AND  TRANSITIONARY  MEASURES. 


1. — Provision  for  and  against  Secession., 

2.— New  National  Name 

3.— Modification  of  the  Flag 


Page  5 
"  7 
"  8 


4.—  Tenure  of  office  during  fidelity  to  law  ......  Page  8 

5.—-  Provision  for  Safe  National  Expansion  .....       "    8 

6.—  National  Public  Schools...  "    8 


RECONSTRUCTION  PROPER. 


1.— The  New  Nation  to  be  a  Government  of  the 
People  —  The  Principles  of  Self-Govern- 
ment  stated Page  8 

2.— Nation  to  be  solely  Sovereign «'    8 

8.— Severance  of  the  Civil  and  Military  func- 
tions of  the  Presidency "  9 

4. — Responsibility  of  minor  Officers  to  the  Peo- 
ple to  be  secured  by  a  cheap  and  speedy 
system  of  Impeachment  in  the  Courts *'  9 

5.— Chief  Officers  removable  by  large  vote  of 

Congress "    9 

6.— Minor  Officers  should  be  made  independent 

of  Politicians  and  Superior  Civil  Officers..       "    9 

7.— Government    should    be  efficient   against 

local  prejudices "10 

8. — Law-makers  and  Vetoers  should  be  super- 

eedable  before  expiration  of  term "10 

Monarchical  and  Republican  Self-Govern- 

ment  contrasted *'  30 

The  intent  of  Elections  securable  otherwise       "  11 
Law-makers  and  Vetoers  should  alone  be 
electable «  11 


9.— About  Women  Voting Page  12 

10. — Voting  for  President  and  Senators  should 

be  direct •«  12 

11. — The  Senate  to  represent  Intelligence,  and 

the  House  the  People  of  the  land "12 

12. — Congress  instead  of  the  State  Legislatures 
to  prescribe  the  qualifications  of  voters  for 
law-makers 

18.— Each  State  should  have  three  Senators- 
all  legislative  terms  of  office  should  be 
shortened 

14.— National  Registry  to  be  the  Basis  of  Voting 

How  Voting  Permits  should  issue "15 

15.— Direct  Taxes  and  Population  should  be  di- 
vorced   "15 

16. — States  should  collect  no  taxes,  but  depend 

on  Congressional  appropriation  for  support  "  15 

17.— Plenty  of  work  and  metallic  money  should 

be  secured  to  all  the  nation "16 

IS. — General  Summary "17 


13 


14 


PREFACE. 


To  radical  thinkei  s— and  they  only  will  read  this  pam- 
phlet— it  is  of  no  consequence  whatever  as  to  who  may 
be  its  author.  It  is  his  wish  that  what  is  written  alone 
shall  be  considered,  as  though  it  were  a  voice  speaking 
from  the  dark.  But  one  remark  respecting  its  tone 
seems  permissible,  and  that  is  required.  Throughout 
the  pamphlet  there  is  a  positiveness  of  assertion  which, 
unexplained,  might  prove  repugnant  to  the  feelings  of 
thinking  men  and  women,  even  if  not  ridiculous  in 
their  view.  When  Congress,  with  all  its  patriotic  and 
highly  educated  ability,  and  when  reconstruction  is  its 
chief  and  special  business,  makes  such  slow  headway, 
for  any  .one  man  (and  he  too  remote  from  the  discus- 
sions of  Washington,  as  well  as  immersed  in  the  cares 
and  toils  of  a  private  business  demanding  his  first  at- 
tention) to  declare,  in  all  positiveness,  this  should  be 
done,  and  that  ought  not  to  be,  and  this  third  thing 
must  be,  while  that  fourth  no  longer  can  be — seeming 
thus  to  assume  to  himself  both  right  and  ability  to  set- 
tle what  the  ablest  men  of  the  nation  are  so  cautious 
about — such  a  tone  must  prove  nothing  else  than  pit- 
iable, if  the  seeming  assumption  be  real.  However 
apparent,  the  writer  desires  in  advance  to  disavow  its 
reality,  and  to  direct  the  attention  of  the  reader  to  the 
fact  that  all  the  "  should'e,"  and  "  must's"  and  "  ought- 
to-be's,'?  even  if  not  necessities  for  national  adoption, 
are  necessities  to  the  statement  of  an  entire  scheme. 
But  that  the  writer  does  most  solemnly  believe  tbe 
adoption  of  some  such  radical  and  comprehensive  pro- 
gramme as  that  herein  submitted  to  be  of  vast,  even  if 
not  of  vital  importance,  he  is  unable  to  deny ;  and 
doubtless  something  of  that  positiveness  alluded  to  is 
referable  to  a  depth  of  conviction  which  the  true  men- 
tal analyst  will  pronounce  incompatible  with  egotistic 
conceit.  Moreover,  the  judgment  of  men  of  enlarged 
and  cultivated  minds,  already  privately  passed  upon 
the  subject,  convinces  him  that  a  careful  consideration 


of  the  scheme,  as  a  whole  (and  not  simply  of  its  parts' 
piecemeal — a  practice  puny  critics  are  prone  to),  will 
command  for  it  such  respect  from  independent  and  able 
minds  as  the  results  of  a  study  of  the  subject  for  a  num- 
ber of  years  should  be  entitled  to. 

Since  the  lecture  was  originally  delivered,  the  least 
likely  of  its  predictions,  viz :  the  CESSION  OF  THE 
RUSSIAN  POSSESSIONS— has  become  almost  an  ac- 
complished fact.  Should  it  fail  of  present  attainment, 
the  future  will  certainly  secure  it.  It  is  more  perti- 
nent, however,  in  this  connexion  to  say  that  three  of 
the  five  measures  herein  denominated  "present  and 
precautionary,"  in  substance,  have  been  enacted  by 
Congress,  and  there  are  promising  indications  that  the 
impeachment  of  Vice  President  Johnson  is  to  follow. 
This  fact  of  itself  is  a  measurable  absolution  from  de- 
served censure  for  positiveness,  and  is  it  not  also,  to 
the  broadly  discerning,  evidence  that  over  the  entire 
continent  there  now  broods  a  recreative  spirit  unseen 
(mysterious  as  that  which,  in  the  Scriptural  beginning, 
moved  upon  the  face  of  the  world's  chaotic  deep,  and 
at  whose  behest  there  sprang  magically  into  existence, 
light,  order,  law  and  love),  and  that  the  result  of 
present  bmoding  on  the  face  of  our  chaotic  political 
deep  is  everywhere  just  about  those  same  creative 
convictions  in  favor  of  present  safety  and  a  magnificent 
future  for  our  nation  and  the  continent,  which  we  each 
are  conscious  of,  as,  ponderingly,  we  Bit,  snowbound, 
by  our  firesides,  ia  homes  perched  upon  the  Sierra's 
heights  ?  And  why  should  not  light,  order,  liberty  and 
law  appear  upon  the  mountains  simultaneously  with 
new  life,  hope  and  world-wide  love  in  the  great  valleys 
of  the  continent,  when  the  fiat  of  Heaven  has  gone 
forth,  and  in  the  very  air  we  seem  to  feel,  even  if  we 
cannot  hear,  the  ordaining  words,  "LET  THERE  BE." 

LOCK  BOX  NO.  1,  Post  Office,  Gold  Hill,  Nevada. 


PROPHECY  AND  THE  REPUBLIC. 


If  the  Scriptures  be  indeed  of  superhuman  origin, 
their  silence  respecting  America,  both  geographically 
and  politically,  while  yet  professing  to  forecast  the  fu- 
ture of  mankind,  would  be  incredible,  and  the  ques- 
tion is  a  natural  one :  Do  the  Scriptures  anywhere  ad- 
vert to  America  and  our  republic  ?  As  a  matter  of  purely 
literary  interest,  the  attention  of  the  reader  is  directed 
for  a  few  moments,  introductory,  to  one  of  the  most 
comprehensible  and  remarkable  of  the  prophetic  utter- 
ances, that  he  may  judge  for  himself  or  herself  whether 
America  has  been  lost  sight  of  in  prophecy,  and  for 
another  reason,  which  will  be  obvious  only  to  those 
who  attentively  peruse  this  entire  address. 

About  2,470  years  ago  many  Hebrew  captives  were 
transported  from  Judea  to  the  famous  Capital  of  the 
Babylonian  Empire,  and  among  them  a  youth,  Daniel. 
It  would  seem,  from  the  account  given  in  the  second 
chapter  of  the  Scriptural  book  bearicg  his  name,  that 
the  monarch,  Nebuchadnezzar,  one  night  dreamed  a 
dream  which  troubled  him  exceedingly,  and  none  the 
less  so  because  unable  at  the  time  to  surmise  an  inter- 
pretation, or  afterwards  even  to  recall  the  dream  itself. 
Attached  to  the  court,  however,  were  astrologers,  ma- 
gicians and  professional  wise  men,  whom  he  sum- 
moned, and  to  whom  he  spoke  in  substance  as  follows : 

u  I  have  dreamed  a  dream  which  is  gone  from  me. 
If  magicians  in  truth,  ye  can  both  divine  the  dream, 
and  render  its  interpretation.  If  ye  fail  to,  then  as 
impostors  I  shall  order  you  slain,  as  well  as  all  of  your 
kind." 

With  no  room  for  deception,  they  could  but  protest 
and  deny  the  ability  of  any  man  to  meet  the  requisi- 
tions of  the  King.  True  to  his  declaration,  however,  j  else"  in  prophecy  be  illusion,  that  image  of  Nebuchadnez- 
he  issued  their  decree  of  death.  It  was  in  the  hands  '  zar  and  of  Daniel  must  be  confessed  incomprehensibly 
of  the  Captain  of  the  guard.  As  he  emerged  from  the  g^er^God3  itTust  "at  S^ve^been^ther^p^c- 
palace  far  its  execution,  Daniel,  who  was  a  favorite,  tured  by  some  prescient  intelligence  superior  to  man. 
met  him  and  cried  "  Hold  !  I  will  make  known  to  the  Upon  the  map  of  the  Eastern  Continent  we  may  still 


Yet  that  vision,  or  doubly  dreamed  dream,  and  recop- 
nized  by  the  Kine  to  have  been  the  one  he  was  unable 
to  recall,  was  seen,  narrated  and  written  when  Rome 
was  but  a  village  upon  the  Tiber,  the  world's  Texas  or 
Idaho,  and  a  refuge  for  debtors,  thieves,  bandits  and 
murderers,  a  century  before  the  Republic  and  five  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  before  the  Empire.  But  for  the  ac- 
count of  Daniel : 

"Thou  art  that  head  of  gold— and  after  thee  shall 
arise  another  kingdom,  and  yet  another  third  king 
dom,  which  shall  also  bear  rule  over  all  the  earth. 
And  after  (hat  shall  arise  a  fourth  kingdom,  which 
shall  be  as  strong  as  Iron,  and  which  shall  sway  the 
world.  Forasmuch  as  iron  breaketh  in  pieces  and  sub- 
dueth  all  things,  so  shall  this  kingdom  break  in  pieces, 
bruise  and  subdue  all  others.  And  whereas,  thou 
sawest  the  divided  feet  and  toes,  part  clay  and  part 
iron,  which  will  not  mix,  so  shall  that  iron  kingdom  be 
divided ;  and  of  the  new  kings,  a  part  shall  be  strong, 
and  a  part  be  feeble  and  broken. 

"  And  in  the  days  of  those  Kings  shall  the  God  of 
Heaven  set  up  a  kingdom,  which  shall  never  be  de- 
stroyed, but  it  shall  break  in  pieces  and  consume  all 
those  kingdoms,  but  it  shall  stand  forever.  Foras- 
much as  thou  sawest  that  the  stone  was  cut  out  of  the 
mountain  without  hanc's,  and  that  it  brake  in  pieces 
the  clay,  the  iron,  the  brass,  the  silver,  and  the  gold, 
the  God  of  all  the  earth  hath  made  known  to  thee,  0 
King,  what  shall  come  to  paps  hereafter,  and  the 
dream  is  certain  and  the  interpretation  thereof  is 


That  doubly  seen  vision  is  almost  2,500  years  old. 
Though  uttered  and  recorded  before  any  but  the  first 
universal  Empire  was  in  existence,  and  though  it 
prophesies  of  events  even  now  in  the  future,  from  the 
moment  of  its  utterance,  blindfold  History,  century  by 
century,  has  been  slowly  unwinding  her  scroll  of 


king  his  dream  and  also  its  interpretation  1"    Ushered 


see  those  feet  and  toes— some  iron,  some  clay ;  but, 
saith  the  vision,  all  are  to  be  broken,  and  bv  a  new 


to  the  royal  presence  and  his  business  announced,  the  j  Kingdom  or  Government,  as  different  in  its  nature  from 
king  bade  him  proceed,  and  in  essentials  the  following 
was  Daniel's  speech : 


0,  King,  the  God  of  heaven  and  of  the  Hebrews  hath 


als  of  the  mine.    What  is  this  coming  kingdom  ?    What 
can  be  this  Government  so  new  in  kind  ?    That  it  is  not 


the  Christian  Church,  either  Greek  or  Roman,  either  re- 


shown  to  tby  servant  the  vision  he  also  showed  the  j  formed  or  ancient,  is  patent  from  the  fact  that  by  the 
King.  Thou  sawest  a  great  image  whose  form  was  ter-  |  vision  it  is  to  break  in  pieces  and  bruise  the  common 
rible.  Its  head  was  of  fine  gold  and  its  arms  and  kingdoms  of  men;  whereas,  in  every  country  except 
breasts  were  silver.  Its  body  and  thighs  were  brass  j  our  own  the  church  is  an  incorporated  part  of  the  Gov- 


ernment, and  lends  to  the  State  its  countenance  and 
support.  What,  then,  is  this  coming  Kingdom  or  new 
kind  of  Government  to  be  ?  "  It  shall  be  established," 
saith  the  vision,  "in  the  days  of  those  Kings."  Is  it, 
then,  even  now  in  existence  ? 


and  its  legs  were  iron,  while  its  feet  and  toes  were  part 
iron  and  part  clay.  Thou  sawest,  till  a  stone,  hewn 
from  a  distant  mountain  by  unseen  hands,  smote  the 
feet  of  iron  and  clay,  and  the  image  fell  and  crumbled, 
while  the  stone  itself  became  a  great  mountain  and 
filled  the  whole  earth.  I  But  for  the  corruptions  of  our  Government  why  could 

"  And  this    is    the    interpretation    of  thy  dream  :  we  not  answer  "Yes?"  and  with  those  corruptions  re- 

Thou,  0  King,  art  a  King  of  Kings,  and  wheresoever  the  moved,  in  consequence  of  that  terrible  hewing  which 

children  of  men  dwell,  even  the  beasts  of  the  field  aud  as  a  nation  we  have  undergone  in  our  gigantic  war,  by 

the  fowls  of  the  air  are  given  into  thy  hand.    Thou  the  unseen  hand  of  Heaven,  who  shall  forbid  Ameri- 

art  that  bead  of  gold."  cans  the  belief  that  our  own  purified  republic,  radi- 

Authenttc  history  shows  the  Babylonian  to  have  cally  reorganized,  is  not  to  be  that  prophetic  stone,  dea- 

been  the  first  univereal  Empire.    It  was  succeeded  by  tmed  yet  to  smite  the  blow  under  whlch  tne  monarchies 

the  Medo-Persian,  that  by  the  Macedonian,  and  the  ! pf  ™ an»  already  too  . old  in  the  blasphemy  of  oppress- 

Macedooian  in    its  turn    was  swallowed  up   by  the  ively  governing  in  the  name  of  God,  must  crumble  and 


Roman.  According  to  Gibbon  (who  will  not  be  accused 
of  desiring:  to  u  make  out "  a  "  fulfillment,"  for  he  took 
every  admissible  occasion  to  expose  and  combat  what 
he  honestly  deemed  Christian  superstition),  after  its 
partition  and  the  dismemberment  of  the  Western 
provinces,  the  Roman  Empire  gave  rise  to  kingdoms, 
which  both  in  number  and  character  are  aptly  symbol- 
ized by  the  feet  and  toes  of  clay  and  iron. 


be  crushed  to  atomic  dust,  that  the  unseen  winds  of 
Heaven  mav  bear  them  to  eternal  burial  beneath  the 
sleepless  billows  of  a  sepultural  sea  ? 

If,  then,  the  reconstructed  Republic  of  America  is  to 
be  that  kingdom  of  heaven  for  which  the  Christian 
world  for  centuries  has  sent  up  daily  prayer,  how  per- 
fect should  be  that  reconstruction,  that  it  may  be 
worthy  of  the  name. 


THE   KINGDOM   COMING. 


The  gnarliest  heart  hath  tender  chords, 

To  waken  at  the  name  of  i  Brother,' 
And  the  time  comes  when  scorpioned  words 

We  shall  not  speak  to  sting  each  other. 
There's  a  divinity  within 

That  makes  men  great  whene'er  they  will  it ; 
God  works  with  all  who  dare  to  win, 

And  the  hour  cometh  to  reveal  it. 

'Tis  coming  up  the  steep  of  Time, 

And  this  old  world  is  growing  brighter  ! 
We  may  not  see  its  dawn  sublime, 

Yet  high  with  hope  our  hearts  throb  lighter. 
We  may  be  sleeping  in  the  ground 

When  it  awakes  the  world  in  wonder, 
Yet  who  but  feels  it  gathering  round, 

And  hears  its  voice  of  living  thunder  ? 

'Tis  coming  now,  the  glorious  time, 

Foretold  by  seers,  and  sung  in  story, 
For  which,  when  thinking  was  a  crime, 

Souls  leapt  to  heaven  from  scaffolds  gory ! 
They  passed — yet  see  the  work  they  wrought ! 

See  now  the  hopes  of  ages  blossom  ! 

JT  O 

The  fruits  of  their  live  lightning  thought 
Appear  to  deck  the  wide  world's  bosom ! 

GEKALD  MASSEY. 


RADICAL   RECONSTRUCTION 

ON   THE   BASIS    OF 

ONE    SUPREME   REPUBLIC, 

WITH 

DEPENDENT  STATES  AND  TERRITORIES, 

UNIFORMLY  CONSTITUTED  IN  SUCH  A  WAY  AS  TO  ABOLISH  THE  CORRUPTIONS 

OF  PARTY  POLITICS. 


To  the  thoughtful,  not  only  has  it  long  been  a  matter 
of  deep  regret,  but  it  rapidly  is  becoming  a  subject  o 
profound  concern,  that  so  few  of  our  public  men  and 
newspapers,  whose  positions  and  functions  seem  to  call 
for  a  wise  leadership  of  the  people,  fail  to  treat  the 
subject  of  reconstruction  with  that  breadth  and  radi. 
cal  comprehensiveness  of  view  which  its  magnitude, 
consequences,  and  the  times  demand.  Scarcely  less 
alarming  is  it,  that  the  spirit  which  breathes  through 
most  of  the  discussions  of  this  subject  at  the  North 
is  one  which  seeks  nothing  nobler  than  national  self- 
defense,  or  claims  nothing  more  exalted  in  point  of 
pride  than  the  recognition  of  the  right  of  any  loyal 
national  citizen  safely  to  go  wherever  be  may  please 
throughout  the  national  domain  ;  whereas,  in  addition 
to  a  necessary  spirit  of  self-defense,  there  should  bear 
brooding  sway  at  such  an  historical  hour  a  spirit  of 
such  broad  benevolence,  of  such  enlarged  wisdom,  of 
such  exalted  magnanimity,  that  it  could  be  heightened 
or  improved  scarcely  by  Heaven  itself.  Such  a  spirit, 
while  as  a  matter  of  course  it  would  secure  alike  the 
safety  of  the  nation  and  the  security,  with  liberty,  of 
its  citizens,  would  seek  to  go  far  beyond,  in  order  to 
heal  those  sectional  animosities  which  now  endanger 
the  national  life,  that  the  way  may  be  prepared  for 
begetting  that  common  uniformity  of  intelligence, 
Interest,  political  faith  and  social  sentiment,  no  less 
than  that  unity  of  purpose  among  all  the  people  of  the 
land,  and  that  common  pride  in  the  national  might  and 
dignity,  without  which,  the  perpetuity,  in  peace  and 
power,  of  any  people,  as  a  single  nation,  is  an  utter 
impossibility. 

It  is  true  that  the  present  temper  of  the  South,  ex- 
cept on  the  part  of  a  small  minority  of  whites,  to- 
gether with  the  entire  mass  of  the  colored  population, 
is  such  as  under  ordinary  circumstances  would  forbid 
a  spirit  of  uncommon  magnanimity  and  forbearance  ; 
but  when  we  reflect  that  the  chief  author  of  such  a 
spirit  is  no  other  than  a  Vice  President  of  our  own 
selection  (whose  speedy  deposition  is  a  necessity,  and 
therefore  becomes  daily  more  certain,  and  repentance 
deferred  till  the  rope  was  on  his  neck  should  not  save 
him),  and  when  we  reflect  that  four  million  blacks  of  ] 


the  South  and  half  a  million  more  at  the  North  are 
radically  loyal  to  the  national  cause,  as  well  as  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  whites  at  the  South,  who  have 
either  been  overawed  by  the  Confederacy  and  its  min- 
ions, or  who  have  heroically  refused  to  bow  the  knee 
to  the  Confederate  image  of  Baal  set  up  ;  bearing  these 
facts  in  mir.d,  in  our  victory,  in  our  ascendency,  in  our 
might,  in  our  pride,  we  can  afford  to  lift  heaven  high 
above  a  petty  spirit  of  crimination  and  contention, 
and,  besides  quietly  doing  and  forbidding  all  that  na- 
tional safety  and  individual  security  throughout  the 
nation  demand— doing  and  foi bidding  as  transitionary 
measures  — we  can  superadd  the  healing  hope  of  a 
future  reconstruction  of  both  loyal  and  rebellious  into 
one  new  nation,  in  which  not  only  all  the  people  of  all 
the  late  States  of  the  Union  shall  have  equal  voice  and 
vote,  but  which  will  also  recognize  as  needful,  an  edu- 
cational qualification  for  representation  in  the  Senato- 
rial branch  of  the  Legislature,  thus  begetting  for  the 
new  Government  an  excellence  which  will  render  it 
needful  for  some  organic  provision  for  the  voluntary 
accession,  from  time  to  time,  of  other  States — if  not 
Kingdoms— to  help  form  the  Great  Republic  of  Amer- 
ica ;  and,  when  our  political  corruptions  and  needless 
present  costs  of  government  are  removed,  together 
with  unlettered  ignorance  throughout  the  world,  such 
accessions  may  help  form  the  universal  republic  of 
mankind. 

Never  before  was  there  so  great  a  need  as  now,  not 
only  for  the  harmonization  of  the  American  people, 
but  for  the  reform,  purification  and  strengthening  of 
their  Governments,  State  and  National,  accompanied 
with  a  reduction  of  Presidential  power.  Scarcely  ha* 
a  de facto  Confederacy  of  Southern  States  been  extin- 
guished (which  Confederacy  would  have  been  a  King- 
dom, could  Gwin,  Mason,  Yancey  or  Slidell  have  dis- 
covered in  all  the  ranks  of  expectant  royalty  a  fool 
flat  enough  to  accept  the  Southern  throne)  and  with 
the  quenching  of  the  Confederacy,  as  a  shadow  must 
follow  its  substance,  an  Empire  has  gone  out— scarcely 
are  these  things  accomplished  facts  when  a  new  Con- 
federacy of  States  is  announced  upon  our  Northern 
borders,  also  projected  as  a  monarchy ;  as  if  Europe 


means  to  try  another  practical  denial  of  our  National 
faith,  that  throughout  wide  America,  from  ocean  to 
ocean,  from  the  Isthmus  to  the  Pole,  no  room  can  be 
found,  and  no  rock  firm  enough,  whereon  to  plant  a 
single  throne.  As  a  fading  cloud  in  the  Southwest, 
the  Empire  of  Mexico  and  France  seems  vanishing, 
though  lingering,  and  while  upon  the  Northern  polit- 
ical horizon  there  looms  the  new  cloud  kingdom  of 
Canada,  lo  !  our  own  political  sky  is  overcast  and  low- 
ering, for,  through  the  arrogance  of  a  half  educated, 
and  the  other  half  drunken  egotist,  whom  we  are 
obliged  to  own  as  our  Vice  President,  we  discover  the 
fact  that,  while  our  Government  is  unable  without  the 
President  to  guard  eveu  the  lives  of  its  own  loyal  citi- 
zens in  territory  lately  subjugated  by  the  National 
arms,  at  the  cost,  too,  of  half  a  million  of  patriot  lives 
and  three  thousand  millions  of  loyal  treasure,  our  Presi- 
dents are  endowed  with  more  than  Kingly  powers, 
and  lack  Imperiality  only  in  the  power  of  transmitting 
their  throne ;  for,  as  Commander  in  Chief  of  the  army, 
the  fiat  of  the  President  could  quench  in  blood  the 
Congress  of  the  nation's  loyalty,  as  a  corresponding 
official  mandate  did  quench  in  blood  the  Congress  of 
loyalty  in  Louisiana,  at  New  Orleans.  Verily,  it  would 
seem  as  if  the  doctrine  of  Monroe,  enunciated  and 
respected  when  the  nation  was  weak  and  feeble,  were 
now,  in  our  day  of  might,  become  a  mockery,  fit  for 
the  caricature  of  a  London  Punch  or  a  misconscious 
Nasby.  Let  us,  as  Americans,  see  to  it  that,  while 
our  General  GOVERNMENT  is  strengthened  to  a  single 
republican  State  with  wisely  distributed  powers,  our 
Presidents  shall  be  shorn  of  their  present  more 
than  regal  rule.  And  let  us  see  to  it,  also,  that 
our  Governments,  both  State  and  National,  be 
so  improved,  purified  and  cheapened  that  with  the 
failure  of  a  British  North  American  monarchy,  there 
may  arise  a  longing  of  its  subjects  for  unity  with  and 
protection  by  the  Great  Republic  of  America.  Pro- 
vided the  Kingdom  of  Canada  shall  be  constituted  as 
truly  a  self-government  as  is  the  monarchy  of  Great 
Britain,  the  comparative  permanence  of  that  new 
Kingdom  and  our  own  new  Nation  will  be  more  propor- 
tioned to  the  excellence  or  quality  of  the  two  respect- 
ive Governments,  than  dependent  upon  the  form  of 
Belf-government.  If  we  do  not,  in  reconstruction, 
constitute  our  new  Government  a  better  one  than  the 
Kingdom  of  Canada,  or  at  least  as  good — as  efficient, 
as  cheap  and  as  just— it  is  more  likely  that,  wearied 
and  disgusted  with  the  perversions  and  corruptions 
now  so  common  in  our  own  land,  our  children  will 
covet  annexation  to  Canada  before  future  Canadians 
will  covet  annexation  to  our  unpurified  and  tax-bur- 
dened Republic.  But  if  only  we  constitute  the  Gov- 
ernment of  our  new  Nation  equally  efficient,  equally 
helpful  and  protective  to  the  ignorant  and  poor,  equally 
just  and  equally  cheap  with  theirs,  nothing  is  more 
certain  than  that,  at  no  distant  day,  Canada  will  be 
both  republican  and  ours — for  the  very  winds  that 
waft  the  oppressed  from  European  and  Asiatic  lands, 
however  foully  charged  with  an  odor  of  monarchy  that 
seems  to  corrupt  all  oceanic  cities,  the  moment  they 
kiss  our  shores  and  breathe  inland  upon  the  continent, 
as  if  by  magic,  they  seem  to  gather  from  our  valleys 
and  our  hills,  from  our  mountains  and  our  streams, 


from  our  prairies  and  our  lakes,  that  spirit  of  Christ- 
broad  liberty  which  can  call  no  man  master  even, 
much  less  Lord  and  King ;  and  this  spirit  all  human 
kind  in  America  breathe  with  the  very  air  into  their 
natures  and  convictions,  so  that  as  truly  as  tbat  Cana- 
dians are  American,  if  we  shall  now  act  well  our  parts, 
just  so  truly  will  we,  with  them,  and  with  an  assimi- 
lated Mexico,  and  with  the  ceded  Russian  Possessions, 
constitute  the  indivisible  Continental  Republic  of 
America. 

The  reconstruction  we  have  been  dreaming  of  haa 
been  unworthy  the  name.  While  reconstruction,  in 
the  fullest  meaning  of  the  word  has  been  our  need,  we 
have  been  prating  about  tinkering  amendments  to  our 
Constitution,  not  in  the  light  of  present,  temporary 
and  transitionary  necessities,  which  only  in  truth  they 
are,  but  as  if  any  three  or  four  constitutional  patches, 
soldered  never  so  tight  and  massive,  could  give  us  the 
Constitution  demanded  alike  by  cur  convictions,  our 
necessities,  our  aims  and  our  times.  We  have  allowed 
our  leaders  to  talk  to  us  as  if  the  whole  problem  of  re- 
construction was,  "  How  can  the  South  be  readmitted 
to  representation  in  the  national  councils  without  en- 
dangering the  national  life  and  compromising  the  na- 
tional dignity  ?"  Whereas,  the  real  problem  is,  il  How 
can  the  national  life  be  preserved  and  its  vigor  be  best 
increased,  as  well  as  its  citizens  throughout  the  na- 
tional domain  be  protected,  while  we  are  preparing  to 
assume  the  garb  of  that  new  nationality  which  des- 
tiny has  decreed  shall  absorb  not  only  the  elements  of 
the  two  republican  nations  begotten  (so  far  as  senti- 
ment goes)  by  the  war  and  its  antecedent  causes,  but 
of  the  rest  of  the  continent  besides." 

The  truth  is,  whether  our  views  are  broad  enough  to 
discern  it  or  not,  or  whether  we  are  too  much  engrossed 
in  personal  occupations,  anxieties  and  interests  or  not 
to  recognize  it— the  truth  is,  that  since  our  birth  as  a 
nation,  in  1776  or  1789,  the  outside  world  has  so  far 
moved  on  and  changed,  and  we  ourselves  have  under- 
gone such  development  and  growth  of  ideas,  senti- 
ments and  convictions,  and  we  have  become  so  thor- 
oughly revolutionized  in  pursuits,  interests,  education 
and  abilities,  as  well  as  advanced  in  wealth  and  intelli- 
gence, that  the  Constitution  which  eighty  years  ago 
only  could  be  accepted  of  the  nation  is  no  longer  more 
than  endurably  adapted  to  our  circumstances,  convic- 
tions and  needs.  Our  constitutional  or  fundamental 
necessity,  therefore,  is  AN  ENTIRELY  NEW  CONSTITUTION, 
harmonious  and  consistent  with  itself,  based  radically 
upon  the  principles  of  self-government  in  republican 
form,  and  recognizing  as  its  overshadowing  feature  the 
sole  supremacy  or  sovereignty  of  the  nation,  and  the 
subordination  of  the  States,  together  with  such  a  uni- 
formity in  their  fundamental  law  tbat  change  of  resi- 
dence from  one  to  another  State  will  not  be  tantamount 
to  removing  to  a  foreign  land. 

In  view  of  what  has  already  been  said,  it  is  plain  the 
measures  of  reconstruction  divide  themselves  into 
three  classes : 

First— Precautionary  measures  for  the  present. 

Second— Preparatory  measures  for  the  reconstruction 
of  the  future. 

Tbird— Reconstruction  proper. 


[3] 


PRECAUTIONARY  MEASURES. 

At  all  hazards  and  at  whatever  needful  cost,  the  na- 
tion must  be  preserved,  and  each  and  every  citizen,  be 
he  white  or  black,  roust  be  protected,  in  whatever  part 
of  the  national  domains  he  may  choose  to  reside  or 
travel.  It  matters  nothing  as  to  whose  lawlessness 
nsecurity  of  life,  property  or  liberty  ia  due.  Such  in- 
securi'y  must  be  abolished,  whether  the  lawless  are  In- 
dian, Mormon,  or  Southern  rebels ;  and,  if  in  no  other 
way,  by  tbeir  utter  and  merciless  extermination.  A 
spirit  of  obedience  to  duly  enacted  law,  and  a  spirit  of 
submission  to  the  duly  constituted  authorities,  even  if 
under  protest,  must  first  be  begotten,  and  must  be 
plainly  evinced,  not  only  by  words  and  empty  oaths, 
but  by  consistent  public  acts  besides,  extending 
over  a  reasonably  long  probationary  term,  before  it  will 
be  safe,  or  consistent  with  the  national  dignity,  to  in 
trust  men,  once  criminally  lawless,  with  a  voice  in  the 
framing  of  laws  for  the  government  of  all,  or  before  it 
will  be  safe  or  consistent  to  confer  upon  them  any 
voice  in  the  selection  of  the  executors  of  such  laws. 

Vice  President  Johnson  has  indulged  so  freely  in  the 
folly  of  claiming  for  the  so-called  Southern  representa- 
tives admission  to  Congress,  that  a  serious  doubt  has 
been  created  in  the  minds  of  many  honest  and  earnest 
men  as  to  whether  or  no  such  admission  ought  not  to 
be  accorded  ;  but  reflection  must  certainly  convince  all 
that  such  admission  would  be  as  constitutionally  and 
internationally  illegal  as  it  would  be  dangerous.  It  is 
as  though,  while  a  vessel  were  asail  on  the  ocean,  a 
part  of  its  officers,  dissatisfied  that  their  superiors  had 
resolved  no  longer  to  sail  the  vessel  chieflv  for  their 
interest  and  pleasure,  during  their  own  night  watch 
mutinously  desert  the  ship,  stealing  her  boats,  and  ca- 
joling, terrifying,  or  impressing  to  their  murderous  serv- 
ice such  of  the  crew  and  minor  officers  as  were  then  on 
duty  and  in  their  power.  Almost  dsarming  the  vessel, 
and  striving  thoroughly  so  to  do  in  order  to  prevent 
recapture,  they  arm  themselves  to  burdensome  reple- 
tion. Scuttling  the  ship,  and  hopelessly,  as  they  sup- 
pose, they  head  for  a  distant  shore,  expecting  to  wit- 
ness the  whelming  of  their  late  superiors  and  the  re- 
maining loyal  crew.  Before  too  late,  however,  the  dan- 
ger to  those  on  board  is  discovered,  the  scuttling 
promptly  plugged,  and  the  pumps  vigorously  plied; 
while  a  shout  of  exultation  rends  the  air  when  it  is 
discovered  that  the  pumps  are  gaining  on  the  water  in 
the  hold.  Safety  on  board  restored,  daylight  discov- 
ers the  deserters  in  the  distance,  laden  with  the  light 
armor  and  richest  of  the  vessel's  stores ;  to  recover 
which,  no  less  than  to  recapture  and  punish  the  muti- 
neers, the  ship  bears  down  upon  them.  Vigorously 
they  ply  their  oars  in  flight,  but  crowding  all  sail  and 
favored  by  a  breeze  from  heaven,  the  vessel  gains 
steadily  upon  them.  To  lighten  their  load  the  muti- 
neers cast  overboard  spare  arms,  ammunition,  and 
even  food;  but  the  old  ship,  as  if  impelled  by  an  an- 
gered, unseen,  n'gher  power,  speeds  swiftly  in  their 
wake,  gaining  mile  upon  mile,  till,  ere  noon,  her  grim, 
charged  guns  frown  upon  and  cover  them  completely. 

Silence  is  broken  by  the  noble  old  Captain's  kindly 
voice,  that  seems  ill-toned  for  the  surrender  he  de- 
man  da.  But  u  surrender  "  is  his  word  and  "  destruc- 
tion," if  either  flight  or  resistance  is  prolonged,  is  the 


alternative.  Moved  by  a  compassion  as  native  to  his 
soul  as  light  to  heaven,  the  Captain  offers  to  feed  and 
protect  all,  and  if  they  but  pass  up  ammunition  and 
arms,  he  proffers  even  to  receive  them  again  on  board 
and  deal  as  leniently  by  them  as  a  Captain  dare.  But, 
even  while  he  speaks,  the  bullet  of  a  mutineer  stretches 
him  cold  in  death,  at  which  a  heliish  shout,  as  of  joy, 
arises  from  the  gang,  while  a  Lieutenant  succeeds  to 
the  command  of  the  ship. 

But  hark !  Hear  you  not  those  further  cries  ?  they, 
too,  are  from  the  boats !  Can  we  make  them  out  ? 
Hark !  "  YOUR  CAPTAIN  is  DEAD  AKD  NOW  WE'LL  SUR- 
RENDER." That  must  mean  submission,  but  it  is  a 
curious  way  to  own  it !  But  listen  once  more :  "  DENY 
us  NO  BIGHTS."  Ah,  that  must  be  a  petition,  to  which 
distance  and  the  water  lend  the  air  of  semi-defiance  I 
But  again :  "  REINSTATE  us  ACCORDING  TO  OUR  SHIPPING 
ARTICLES."  Unmistakably  that  is  both  the  tone  and 
langua.ee  of  parley  and  non-sufcmission  !  But  again : 
"  READMIT  us  ON  BOARD  FULL  ARMED."  That  is  undoubt- 
edly demand  and  insolence. 

Foiled  in  their  attempt  to  sink  the  ship,  and  captured 
in  flight,  on  the  verge  of  starvation  and  at  the  mercy 
of  the  loyal  crew,  can  it  be  that  these  are  the  cries  of 
mutineers !  But  hark  !  the  new  Captain  speaks !  What 
says  he  ?  Loud  in  denunciation  while  in  swift  pursuit, 
what  says  he  now  as  Captain? 

Impossible !  Impossible !  He  accedes !  He  own« 
the  legal  rightfulness  of  their  demands  !  He  orders 
the  boats  to  draw  near !  What  means  he  ?  Will  he 
surrender  the  ship  to  their  command  ?  or  is  he  their 
Captain  !  But  listen  !  He  talks  to  them  over  the  ves- 
sel's sides !  Ee  speaks  as  though  he  were  of  their 
number,  and  all  they  were  his  most  ardent  friends,  and 
as  euch  he  promises  tbem  full  protection.  He  assures 
them  that  by  their  articles  of  agreement  they  could  not 
desert  the  ship,  and  their  actual  desertion  was  there- 
fore null  and  void,  and  consequently  they  still  are  sail- 
ors and  officers,  whose  rights  none  shall  call  in  ques- 
tion so  long  as  he  remains  Captain,  though  he  sink  the 
ship  to  prevent  it !  Foaming  with  insolent  violence, 
he  orders  them,  full  armed,  on  board,  and  immediately 
to  their  former  posts — for,  their  mutiny  having  b*en  a 
legal  nullity,  he  declares  could  not  be  a  crime,  but 
only  a  mistaken  bit  of  wildness — an  imprudence  that 
must  be  kindly  overlooked — in  fact,  treated  as  though 
it  were  a  joke  of  the  highest  order,  whose  chief  fruit 

Was    THE     ELEVATION    OF    HIMSELF    TO    THE  CAPTAINCY  ! 

That  is  the  attitude,  as  well  as  the  reasoning,  of  Vice 
President  Johnson.  And  what  should  be  our  answer  ? 
Words  are  inadequate.  We  must  speak  by  deeds.  WB 

SHOULD  HANG   HIM  FOR  COMPLICITY  WITH  TREASON  ! 

The  only  thing  a  sane  commander  in  such  circum- 
stances could  do  would  be  to  keep  off  the  mutineers 
till  disarmed  and  submissive  ;  and  if  right  early  a  sub- 
missive spirit  failed  to  appear,  why  ought  he  not  to  sink 
tbem  and  do  as  he  pleased  with  the  survivors  ?  And 
if  for  any  reason  he  should  decide  not  to,  but  should 
conclude  (and  of  course  without  consulting  them  !) 
even  for  years  to  carry  them  in  irons,  what  right- 
thinking  man  or  Government  could  complain  of  aught 
but  such  imprudent  lenience  ?  Who  but  a  fool  could 
declare  such  restraint  unlawful?  In  such  circum- 
stances, whatever  punitive  course  the  Captain  might 


take  would  be  as  lawful  as  it  would  be  right, 
though  the  articles  of  agreement  never  said  manacle 
once,  and  tor  the  simple  reason  that  by  desertion  and 
mutiny  they  had  forfeited  their  rights  as  sailors  an 
officers,  and  thereby  became  amenable  first  to  crimina 
law  and  to  punishment. 

Whatever  measures,  therefore,  we,  the  remainin 
loyal  crew  on  our  noble  old  American  ship  of  State,  fo 
the  safety  of  the  ship,  for  the  preservation  of  our  live 
and  for  the  security  of  our  property — whatever  meas 
ures  we  ourselves  exclusively  adopt,  even  if  it  be  t 
the  sinking  of  the  boats  that  once  we  carried,  our  ac 
tion  must  be  deemed  both  just  and  lawful.  Shoul 
England  or  France  dispute  it,  in  one  minute  the  natio: 
would  shout  "Figbt  "—why,  then,  hesitate  when  onlj 
the  surviving  criminals  object  to  hanging?  How  ceulc 
we  expect  them  to  enjoy  such  an  exercise ! 

Though  it  is  less  the  intention  of  this  address  to  dis 
cuss  the  precautionary  and  transitionary  measures  o 
the  present  than  to  dwell  on  those  to  which,  as  a  na 
tion,  we  need  to  come  for  our  ultimate  and  permanen 
reorganization,  it  is  needful  to  designate,  even  if  not 
discuss  them.  They  are : 

1.  Our  Constitution  should  immediately  be  so  amendec 
that  not  only  the  President  or  a  Cabinet  officer,  but  like 
wise  any  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  should  be  deposa 
ble  from  office,  either  with  or  without  assigned  cause,  by 
the  simple  passage  of  a  bill  for  that  purpose  by  a  three 
fourths,  or  a  four-fifths  vote  of  the  National  Legisla 
ture.      Comment  on  this  proposition  is  needless.    Re- 
cent developments  demand  it,  and  that  is  enough. 
Ours  must  be  a  Government  of  the  people,  as  well  as  a 
Government  of  law. 

2.  Even  before  such  a  change  can  be  effected,  Andrew 
Johnson  should,  by  ordinary  cumbrous  impeachment 
and  conviction,  be  deposed  from  the  Executive  chair, 
and  suspended  from  office  during  his  trial.    Should  his 
impeachment  trial  develop  the  fact  that  he  was  guilty 
of  even  a  remote  complicity  in  the  assassination  of 
President  Lincoln,  as  soon  as  a  civil  trial  for  either 
treason  or  murder  could  be  framed,  he  should  be  con- 
victed and  hung  ;  or,  if  that  be  as  impracticable  under 
our  present  law  as  is  the  trial  and  conviction  of  Jeffer- 
eon  Davis,  then,  as  the  military  Commander-in- Chief, 
and,  as  such,  amenable  to  military  law,  he  should  be 
Court-martialed  and  shot.    The  treason  of  Jefferson 
Davis  pales  before  that  of  Andrew  Johnson,  as  the  light 
of  a  match  is  invisible  in  the  glare  of  the  sun.    With 
Johnson  executed,  Davis  might  possibly  be  safely  par- 
doned, after  one  year  of  Anderson ville  prison  fare  and 
shelter. 

8.  The  presiding  officer  of  the  Senate  should  be  as 
resolute  a  man  as  he  should  be  good  a  lawyer.  It  is  to 
be  regretted  that  General  Butler  ig  only  a  Representa- 
tive, for  as  President  of  the  Senate,  even  better  than 
Wade  would  he  fill  the  vacancy  occasioned  by  the  re- 
moval of  the  Vice  President  or  by  his  arrest  for  mur- 
der. Even  if  unexecuted,  with  Johnson  and  Davis 
both  in  prison,  there  would  be  hope  for  loyalty ;  and 
with  no  Presidential  restraint  on  General  Grant,  we 
should  hear  no  more  of  massacres  in  the  Southern 
cities,  nor  would  the  people  of  the  South  longer  read 
disloyal  fulmlnations  against  the  Government  from 


]  seditious  newspapers ;  nor  would  the  election  laws,  or- 
j  dained  either  by  a  loyal  Legislature  or  by  a  loyal  Con- 
'  gress,  again  be  set  aside  and  rendered  null  by  either 
rebel  violence  or  votes. 

4.  Inasmuch  as  the  Constitution  requires  Congress 
to  guaranty  to  every  State  a  republican  form  of  Gov- 
ernment, Congress  should  first  define  what  a  republi- 
can form  of  Government  is,  and  then  appoint  a  com- 
petent Commission,  to  make  inquest  as  to  the  charac- 
ter of  each  State  Government,  whether  it  be  that  of 
Maine  or  of  Louisiana,  whether  Wisconsin  or  South 
Carolina.  Such  States  as  in  the  judgment  of  Con- 
gress do  not  possess  Governments  republican  in  char- 
acter should  be  denied  representation  in  the  national 
councils,  until  they  shall  secure  such  republican  Gov- 
ernments ;  and  without  delay  Congress  should  proceed 
to  frame  republican  Constitutions  for  their  govern- 
ment, which  Constitutions  should  be  uniform  In  all 
important  features,  but  especially  in  the  prescription 
of  qualifications  for  voters  and  jurors,  and  in  requir- 
ing the  sanction  of  Congress  to  all  changes  in  such 
Constitutions  in  order  to  perfecting  their  validity. 

5.  The  President  should  be  denied  the  right  of  su- 
perseding any  national  officer  who  had  been  confirmed 
by  the  Senate  until  the  new  nominee  is  also  conSrmed 
by  the  Senate;  and  no  appointee  who  fills  temporarily 
a  lona  fide  vacancy  should  ever  receive  any  pay  for 
his  services  if  not  Senatorially  confirmed. 

The  foregoing  measures,  imperfect  as  they  are,  if 
viewed  as  permanent  devices  for  reconstruction,  are 
no  more  than  sufficient  to  tide  us  over  the  political 
shoals  in  the  midst  of  which  we  are  now  sailing,  to  the 
deep  waters  of  a  restored  common  prosperity  and 
seace  for  the  whole  land ;  the  attainment  of  which  will 
require  the  lapse  of  at  least  as  much  time  as  traitora 
spent  in  rebellion,  and  no  more  time  than  should  be 
required  of  them  for  their  naturalization  as  American 
citizens,  as  if  they  were  foreigners.  Not  to  require 
;hose  who  have  been  participants  in  treason  to  un- 
dergo naturalization,  with  the  rights  of  voting  and  sit- 
ing on  juries,  as  well  as  of  administering  the  laws, 
must  so  infallibly  bring  the  Government  into  contempt 
and  decriminalize  treason,  that  it  were  insanity  ever  to 
dream  of  such  indecency  of  haste  or  of  such  irnbecil- 
ty  of  lenience.  It  is  greatly  to  be  deplored  that  our 
eaders  in  Congress  should  even  momentarily  have 
reakened  upon  so  vital  a  point.  It  should  be  insisted 
pon,  though  it  required  an  army  of  occupation  at  the 
South  a  million  strong,  and  at  a  cost  of  a  thousand 
millions  of  dollars  a  year ;  for  without  it,  for  all  prac- 
ical  efficiency,  the  Government  of  the  nation  at  the 
outh  is  abolished,  while  the  nominal  surrender  of  the 
onfederate  armies  transmutes  to  the  actual  subjuga- 

on  of  the  nation  by  the  mobs  which  left  those  armies 
aroled. 

The  spirit  of  the  foregoing  remarks  is  one  which  the 
ecessities  of  the  times  and  situation  demand.  Though 
ased  in  justice  and  the  principles  of  human  nature, 
>ey  make  no  claim  to  a  spirit  of  magnanimity  which 
ould  win  cordiality  of  co-operation  from  rebels.  They 
o  not  aim  to.  They  are  not  adapted  to  that  result, 
t  would  be  folly  to  attempt  such  a  thing.  Johnson 
las  perhaps  tried  it,  and  succeeded  only  in  making 
imself  as  much  the  laughing  stock  of  history  as  poor 


[5] 


Buchanan  has  become  compassionately  contemned, 
while  Lincoln,  by  as  much  a  wiser  as  it  was  a  kindlier 
course,  unconsciously  enthroned  himself  among  the 
historical  gods.  So  long  as  a  spirit  of  rebellion  is 
vital,  so  long  nothing  can  conciliate  or  win  it.  The 
very  essence  of  rebellion  is  unlimited  usurpation  of 
right  and  law  by  might.  No  concessions  can  appease 
it.  Its  cravings  are  for  absolute  and  unchecked  domi- 
nation. Concessions  but  craze  a'nd  madden  it,  as  the 
scent  and  taste  of  blood  frenzy  a  pent  and  famishing 
tiger.  It  thirsts  for  more.  It  craves  destruction. 
Even  if  begotten  by  disease,  the  essence  of  rebellion  is 
crime,  which  must  be  curbed  while  the  disease  is  ad- 
ministered to.  Its  first  treatment  is  confinement,  and 
its  cure  involves  not  only  sturdy  nursing  but  heavy 
purging  and  palpable  punishment.  It  is  an  insanity, 
and  its  complete  cure  calls  for  the  awakening  of  a  men- 
tal hope,  bright  and  broad  enough  to  banish  the  bitter- 
ness and  gall  of  the  mental  part.  The  hope  of  future 
reinstatement  among  the  good  and  sane,  contingent 
alike  upon  penitence  and  recovery,  must  be  the  men- 
tal beacon  for  our  madmen  of  the  South.  Magnanim- 
ity is  lost  upon  unreasonable  revolt.  It  can  compre- 
hend nothing  but  indomitable  will  and  power  com- 
bined. Violent  itself,  it  fears  violence,  and  can  only 
be  cowed  or  bludgeoned  into  submission.  It  cannot  be 
lulled  to  rest,  but  must  sleep,  if  ever,  from  exhaustion 
when  despair  sets  fully  in ;  and  from  sleep  it  may 
awake  less  wild,  or  possibly  even  sane,  and  under  a 
treatment  of  non-discussional  as  well  as  unviudictive 
kindness  it  may  grow  to  hate  the  past  and  hope  in 
the  future  for  worthier  and  greater  good  than  ever  un- 
worthily it  dreamed  of  through  rebellion  in  the  past. 

The  spirit  of  rebellion  at  the  South  has  not  yet  fallen 
into  tbe  stupor  of  exhaustion  that  precedes  sleep  and 
curative  rest.  It  yet  raves,  and  a  silly  nurse  has  been 
trying  to  convince  both  patient  and  doctors  that  these 
ravings  are  actually  reason,  only  indignantly  vehe- 
ment. Even  the  patient  knows  better,  and  but  feigns 
belief.  A  NEW  NURSE  is  NEEDFUL,  even  for  the  patient's 
good,  for  he  must  be,  not  flattered,  but  both  watched 
and  curbed.  Doors  must  be  secured  and  windows 
barred,  and  however  kindly  in  our  hearts  we  may  feel, 
our  first  duty  is  control,  government  and  safety.  The 
foregoing  indicated  measures  are  but  the  means.  They 
are  but  the  manacles,  the  extra  bars  and  bolts,  and 
our  present  duty  is  to  keep  watch  and  guard  ;  and  if 
we  boldly  and  firmly  fulfill  our  present  duty,  a  nobler, 
a  more  pleasant,  a  grander  one,  will  be  soon  before  us 
— that  of  rearing,  aided  by  our  present  prisoner  pa- 
tients and  directed  by  the  unseen  powers  of  Heaven, 
that  political  edifice  for  man  for  which  the  oppressed 
have  ever  sighed,  of  which  Scripture  prophesies  and  of 
which  poets  dream  and  orators  catch  inspiration 
glimpses  in  their  heavenward  flights.  To  the  consid- 
eration of  a  series  of  measures  designed  to  prepare  the 
people  of  the  nation,  in  sentiment,  lor  a  cordial  subse- 
quent adoption  of  what  would  amount,  in  practice,  to  a 
new  Constitution,  your  attention  is  now  directed. 

PREPARATORY  MEASURES. 

It  is  at  this  point  where  first  it  becomes  either  fitting 
or  sale  that  a  spirit  of  benign  and  exalted  magnanim- 
ity should  divest  itself  of  armor  and,  laying  aside  the 
mien  of  the  captor  as  we  doff  the  garb  of  the  physician, 


we  must  sit  down  by  the  bedside  of  our  patients  as 
friends,  and  avowing  not  only  our  native  equality  but 
a  brotherliness  of  feeling  stronger  and  more  lasting 
than  the  transient  vindictive  indignation  begotten  by 
the  war,  we  must  evince  not  only  a  readiness  but  a  res- 
olution to  forget  the  past,  and  having  annihilated  their 
National  Government,  disclose  the  purpose  of  abandon- 
ing our  own,  that  with  them  we  may  be  one  people, 
and  as  cordially,  as  we  must  be  legally,  united  and  in- 
dissoluble under  a  Constitution  based  on  necessities, 
experiences,  convictions,  principles,  aims  and  aspira- 
tions common  to  us  all.  While  we  cannot  yield 
the  purposes  for  which  we  warred,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, we  must  embody  them  in  our  new  organic  law, 
all  non-essential  matters  on  which  our  common  pride 
can  fasten,  we  can  even  offer  much  more  than  concede. 
In  the  new  nation  every  believer  in  self-government 
must  have  an  equal  voice  and  vote,  but  at  the  same 
time  we  can  admit  educated  intelligence  to  become  a 
distinct  curbing  factor  in  the  Government,  not  only 
by  requiring  a  certain  degree  of  education  in  order  to 
eligibility  to  office,  but  likewise  necessary  in  order 
to  vote  for  members  of  one  branch  of  the  Legis- 
latures, State  and  National ;  and,  warned  by 
an  experience  of  manifold  evils  in  the  past, 
and  by  a  burden  of  necessary  taxation  elsewhere 
unknown  and  nowhere  else  endurable,  we  must  leave 
no  room  for  the  continued  existence  or  new  growth  of 
any  such  debasing  and  corrupt  system  of  politics  as 
has  fastened  like  a  huge  and  monster  vampire,  with  ten 
thousand  leeching  heads,  upon  the  very  vitals  of  all 
our  Governments,  municipal,  State  and  national.  The 
result  of  such  a  system  now  is,  the  perverson  of  our 
Governments  from  the  attainment  of  their  sole  legiti- 
mate and  justifying  ends— security  to  all  the  law-abid- 
ing people  in  the  free  pursuit  of  happiness— to  the 
compassing,  primarily,  of  personal  advantages  or  grati- 
fications to  some  political  aspirant  or  professional 
office  seeker,  however  unworthy  of  common  confidence, 
or  however  unfit  for  any  public  trust — resulting  also 
in  such  serious  perversion  of  justice  to  criminals  and 
consequent  insecurity  of  life  and  property,  as  some- 
times necessitates,  and  therefore  morally  justifies  resort 
to  lynching  -  imposing  also  a  needless  taxation  on  both 
property  and  income,  while  creating  a  fearfully  large 
class  of  non-producing  office  seekers,  who,  after  desert- 
Ing  creative  labor,  add  nothing  to  tbe  taxable  wealth 
of  the  community,  thus  burdening  property  and  in- 
come doubly — honoring  also  with  official  posts  and 
large  compensations  (for  nominally  filling  offices,  the 
duties  of  which  are  performed  by  others),  men  of  noto. 
riously  intemperate,  depraved  and  brutal  habits— thus 
weakening  that  confidence  and  respect  of  the  people 
for  the  Government  and  its  executors  which  renders 
obedience  difficult,  and  without  which  affection  and 
devotion  even  to  our  very  form  of  government  cannot 
survive  a  century,  much  less  through  the  ages  of  his- 
tory to  come.  But  for  the  measures  of  preparation  and 
healing  in  particular : 

First— When  a  spirit  of  thorough  submission  Is  re- 
begotten  on  the  part  of  the  Southern  whites  to  the 
principles  of  self  government  as  embodied  in  our 
national  institutions,  such  a  submission  as  Andrew 
Johnson  transmuted  into  one  of  arrogance  and  dicta- 


[6] 


tion,  for  which  he  is  (far  more  than  his  present  masters 
are)  responsible,  rendering  the  second  subjugation  of 
the  South  to  the  nation  as  essential  as  the  first,  in 
order  to  the  national  safety  and  security  of  the  people- 
when  those  who  at  the  South  have  usurped  and  solely 
exercised  the  inherent  political  rights  of  all  the  people 
there — when  they,  restored  to  reason,  shall  grow  to  feel 
it  a  privilege,  far  more  than  right,  to  gain,  instead  of 
former  domination  and  instead  of  present  national 
sway,  present  immunity  from  death  and  confiscation  of 
all  property  for  treason,  coupled  with  the  hope  of  a 
future  equal  voice  in  the  Government  with  their  former 
slaves  (by  their  own  madness  converted  into  their 
fallow  citizens),  and  no  more  than  an  equal  voice  also 
with  each  of  the  other  inhabitants  of  the  land,  then 
will  the  time  have  come  for  us  to  bs  so  tender  and 
regardful  of  their  Americanhood  as,  in  granting  con- 
cessions, to  forbear  all  allusion  even  to  the  fact  that 
once  they  were  subjugated  legal  criminals,  and,  as 
such,  properly  denied  the  privileges  properly  common 
among  law-abiding  men.  Not  only  will  they  then  have 
been  unfitly  legally  pardoned  by  official  parchment 
and  a  Presidential  clerk,  but  it  will  be  as  fitting  as  it 
will  be  noble  and  dramatically  grand,  that  the  widowed 
and  orphaned  alike  of  the  South  and  North  shall  for- 
give them  from  their  very  hearts.  All  other  facts 
should  then  be  forgotten  and  swallowed  up  in  the  one 
great  new  fact  that  they  are  each  willing,  as  equals,  to 
help  all  the  rest  rear  a  fabric  of  government  for  man, 
as  well  as  for  their  and  our  posterity  and  common 
weal,  better  than  that  they  warred  against,  in  which 
none  shall  be  born  to  rule,  but  under  which  any  may  be 
chosen  of  all,  and  chosen  by  the  largest  vote,  to  serve 
the  whole  people,  and  in  such  capacities,  too,  as  the 
people  ordain  in  their  organizing  law.  Then,  mag- 
nanimity will  be  as  honorable  as  safe,  and  we  can 
freely  consider  questions  as  questions,  which  under 
the  menacing  and  murderous  threats  and  assaults  of 
the  former  South  we  were  obliged  to  dismiss  as  ques- 
tions, in  order  to  punish  the  belligerents  who  assumed 
to  settle  them,  not  only  for  themselves  but  very  gra- 
ciously for  ourselves  also  and  without  our  leave,  while 
we  ourselves,  in  just  retaliation,  for  the  time  being  set- 
tled them  for  all,  in  opprsition  to  their  wishes. 

The  question,  as  a  question,  has  never  been  consid- 
ered by  the  nation,  whether  any  portion  of  the  na- 
tional domain  can  be  segregated  from  the  rest,  to  be- 
come an  independent  and  sovereign  State ;  and  if  such 
a  thing,  under  any  circumstances,  is  admissible,  how 
such  territory  can  be  so  segregated.  The  only  ques- 
tion which,  as  a  nation,  we  have  considered  and  de- 
cided is,  that  no  State  or  Territory  of  the  American 
Union  is  so  far  sovereign  or  independent,  either  of  the 
National  Government  or  of  its  fellow  States,  that  it 
may,  either  with  or  without  insult  or  defiance,  and  not 
only  without  leave  but  against  leave,  of  itself  assume 
to  sever  a  political  connection  which  was  jointly 
formed,  forgetful  alike  of  the  law  and  the  adage,  "It 
takes  two  to  undo  as  well  as  make  a  bargain ;"  and  as 
though  political  neighbors  had  neither  vested  rights  or 
interests  in  a  continuance  of  political  relations. 

There  is  no  likelihood  that  the  people  of  America 
ever  will  consent  to  any  partition  of  the  national 
domain.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  every  probability 


that,  and  reason  why,  they  should  not.  Notwithstand- 
ing, if  ever  we  should  so  choose,  we — the  entire  people 
of  the  Republic— have  as  full  and  perfect  a  right  to 
ordain  it  as  we  have  to  forbid  it.  The  power  to  choose 
either  is  a  necessary  part  of  political  sovereignty.  The 
very  surest  method  of  guarding  against  another  violent 
attempt  at  secession  would  be,  not  as  Johnson  and  his 
doting  or  rebel  advisers  recommend,  by  constitutional 
prohibition  of  any  such  thing,  thereby  almost  necessi  - 
tating  secrecy  of  plot  and  possible  wholesale  assassina- 
tion for  its  accomplishment,  should  the  future  ever 
again  bring  forth  so  mad  a  wish ;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
the  surest  method  of  prevention  would  be,  in  our  new 
National  Constitution  to  provide  not  only  for  the 
secession  but  exclusion  of  any  section  of  the  national 
domain  from  the  rest  of  the  nation  by  some  open  and 
simple,  but  tardy  and  difficult  method ;  so  that  the 
very  proposition,  instead  of  being  regarded  as  idle 
buncombe  and  blustering  braggadocio,  would  wake  the 
nation  not  only  to  its  legal  veto,  and  to  preparation 
for  resistance  by  force  of  arms  if  needful,  but  also  to 
inquire  into  the  reality  of  wrongs  and  burdens  which 
could  generate  so  dire  a  wish.  To  effect  either  a  seces- 
sion or  an  exclusion,  however,  let  it  be  needful  for 
legality  that  the  entire  people  of  the  nation,  as  well  as 
of  tfce  section  to  be  cut  off  (or  lefused  its  independence, 
as  the  case  might  be)  by  two  distinct  direct  votes  upon 
the  subject,  remote  from  each  other  by  a  year,  shall 
desire  and  sanction  it  by  a  two-thirds  or  four-fifth* 
majority  of  all  the  nationally  registered  voters. 

Such  a  provision  would  forever  prevent  a  second  re- 
sort to  arms  as  a  means  of  secession,  and  by  admitting 
both  the  constitutionality  and  the  possibility  of  such  a 
thing,  it  would  reduce  the  likelihood  of  segregation  to 
the  lowest  possible  degree,  and  at  the  same  time  would 
tend  to  temper  with  greater  considerateness  and  re- 
spect both  national  and  local  legislation.  While  such 
a  provision  in  our  new  Constitution  would  practically 
result  in  the  coldest,  stiffest  and  waxiest  death  and  en- 
shroudment  of  secession  which  it  is  possible  to  com- 
pass, its  greatest  value  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  would  be 
a  nominal  concession  to  Southern  American  pride, 
wbich  would  afford  Southern  leaders  both  excuse 
and  cause  for  cordiality  toward  the  new  nation ;  for 
they  would  claim,  and  it  would  be  true,  that  the  new 
Republic  admits  and  affirms  the  principle  for  which 
they  periled  life,  sacrificed  property  and  underwent  all 
the  horrors  of  an  invasive  and  a  desolating  war. 

The  task  for  the  statesmanship  of  the  present  hour 
is  less  how  to  govern  and  tax  the  South  with  safety 
than  how  to  recreate  the  former  sentiment  of  national 
unity,  as  one  people,  on  the  part  of  all  the  people  of 
the  land,  South  and  North,  while  maintaining  the  legal 
fact,  that  however  widely,  in  point  of  ieeling,  we  have 
been  a  sundered  nation,  in  point  of  fundamental  law 
we  have  never  been  divided.  We  all  know  better  than 
to  imagine  that  any  other  sentiment  than  one  of  hos- 
tility can  be  whipped  or  beaten  into  any  American, 
South  or  North.  The  South  thought  otherwise,  and 
tried  it  on  at  Surnter,  and  afterwards  at  Bull  Run  ;  but 
what  was  the  result  ?  At  the  one,  the"  North  arose  en 
masse,  and  volunteered,  unarrred,  a  universal  invasion 
of  the  South !  At  the  other,  there  came  down  that 
horde  of  grim  and  sturdy  stalwarts  from  the  land  of 


[7] 


schools,  and  type?,  and  steam,  and  plows,  each  one  of 
whom  felt  that  mankind  was  wronged  in  the  nation's  dis- 
aster, and  that  he  himself  wa3  heaven-inspired  to  right 
the  wrong.  With  such  a  faith  they  were  in  truth  a  giant 
horde,  under  whose  legioned  tread  the  continent 
shook  and  the  political  world  trembled,  and  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course  treason  was  trodden  into  dung.  Did  the 
defeat  of  our  national  aims  quench  our  national  feel- 
ing ?  Did  it  not  the  rather  give  it  new  and  vital  birth  ? 
Did  not  each  change  of  base,  that  brought  to  our  burn- 
ing cheeks  the  mantling  blush  of  shame,  work  into  our 
Tery  souls,  enlarging  and  ennobling  them,  begetting  a 
patriotic  zeal  for  the  nation,  and  a  devotion  like  that 
of  worship  for  the  ideas  for  which  we  warred,  leading 
thousands  to  volunteer  their  very  lives  and  forego  en- 
dearments more  precious  than  life  in  attestation  of 
their  feelings  ?  And,  think  you,  after  the  joyful  van- 
ity and  hope  begotten  in  the  Southern  mind  by  early 
and  transient  victory,  think  you  that  when  gigantic 
reverses,  like  thunderbolts  from  heaven,  fell  upon  the 
armies  of  the  Confederate  flag,  think  you  that  some 
such  frenzy  of  devotion  to  their  ideas  did  not  also 
•trike  straight  to  the  Americanism  of  their  souls,  be- 
getting in  them  a  sense  of  nationality  hostile  to  our 
own?  How  could  they  be  American  and  not  so  feel? 
And  when,  by  colossal  invasion  and  State-broad  bat- 
tles, army  after  army  was  put  to  flight,  their  Govern- 
ments dispersed  if  not  annihilated,  their  cities  cap- 
tured, and  their  fields  laid  waste,  and,  peopling  the 
shallow-trenched  graves  of  Southern  battle-fields,  or 
Northern  Gettysburg— if  not  helpless,  suffering  or  de- 
lirious in  unknown  hospitals,  or  secreted  and  wounded 
in  desolate  swamps,  doomed  to  lie  unburied  and  fester- 
ing in  the  sun,  if  not  sooner  devoured  as  carrion — there 
lay  the  very  flower,  pride  and  hope  of  ten  thousand 
Southern  households,  inhabited  now  alone  with  bowed- 
down  mothers  and  broken-hearted  widows,  or  grief- 
stricken  sisters  and  agonizing  sweethearts,  wonder- 
ingly  mourning  in  desperate  fidelity  to  the  memory  of 
son  and  husband,  brother  and  lover — think  you  that 
in  such  American  souls  a  bitterness  of  hate  could  help 
arising  toward  that  giant  power  which  humbled  and 
bereft  them,  and  left  them,  untutored  to  self-sustaining 
toil,  to  a  choice  between  prostitution  in  the  cities, 
beggary  in  the  midst  of  blight  and  ruin,  or  gaunt 
starvation,  inferior  only  to  that  their  nation  wickedly 
inflicted  upon  their  prisoners  of  the  North  ?  And 
however  needful  such  crushing  subjugation,  or  how- 
ever terrible  its  inevitable  consequences,  the  fact  that 
their  revolt  was  without  excuse,  but  in  reality  rooted 
in  social  prejudice  and  aristocratic  pride — that  very 
fact  must  but  intensify  and  fiercen  their  hatred  of 
what  they  term  the  North.  Though  Northern  to  the 
very  core,  thank  Heaven  we  need  be  no  less  American 
now  than  before  the  war,  and  as  willing  to  understand 
the  feelings  of  all  Americans  and  confess  them  natural, 
even  when  not  justifiable,  as  to  help  devise  effectual 
and  permanent  remedies  and  relief  not  inconsistent 
with  the  wider  demands  of  a  broader  humanity — and 
if  sympathy  with  the  people  of  the  South  as  fellow 
Americans  be  so  great  a  crime  that  hatred  of  their 
late  political  views  and  purposes  cannot  make  atone- 
ment, it  were  better  and  more  glorious  to  be  con- 
demned of  rabble  bigots  than  receive  their  applause 
for  shriveled  hatred  and  insane  vindictiveness.  But, 


fellow  Americans,  if,  instead,  such  individual  sympa- 
thy and  such  collective  respect  for  the  Americanhood 
of  the  South,  bright  and  brave  as  it  proved  itself  on 
many  a  hundred  battle-fields,  if  that  be  virtue  in  your 
eyes,  then  with  open  hearts  and  ready  minds  receive 
this  appeal  for  new  fellowship  and  union  with  them, 
in  a  Government  as  new  to  us  as  to  them,  in  which 
way  only  can  we  be  worthy  of  or  gain  their  love.  In 
like  circumstances,  how  would  it  have  been  with  us,  it 
instead  of  the  nation  conquering  the  South,  the  South 
had  conquered  us,  and  in  order  to  do  so  had  despoiled 
and  ruined  us.  "Would  it  have  been  easy  for  us  cheer- 
fully to  submit  to  victorious  power  ?  And  if  they  find 
it  difficult,  shall  not  we  at  least  be  patient  ?  And  if 
spurred  on  to  insolence  by  a  disloyal  press,  which  our 
own  Vice  President  refuses  to  silence,  while  he  leads 
them  on  to  greater  arrogance,  shall  we  visit  on  them, 
his  not  guiltless  victims,  the  weight  of  a  wrath  which 
is  due  chiefly  to  him,  while  unimpeached  he  sways  a 
ecepter  upon  an  American  throne  ? 

But  to  return  to  our  supposition— if  conquered  by 
the  South,  and  no  matter  how  thoroughly  convinced 
that  our  ideas  could  not  prevail  and  that  those  of  our 
opponents  must  bear  sway,  would  it  not  be  infinitely 
more  possible  for  us  to  become  part  of  a  nominally 
new  Nation,  which  should  embody  with  their  victori- 
ous ideas  as  many  of  our  own  as  could  be  made  con- 
sistent, we  ourselves  consenting  as  equals,  than  it 
would  be  to  bow  to  the  sway  of  the  Southern  Confed- 
eracy? And  if  we  would  feel  so,  even  though  improp- 
erly, why  should  we  shut  our  eyes  to  what  must  be  the 
feelings  of  the  conquered  whites  of  the  South,  and  why 
should  we  neglect  that  broad  wisdom  of  magnanimity 
which  bids  us  (but,  on  the  contrary,  for  narrow  and 
passionate  reasons,  however  naturally  begotten,  refuse 
to)  hold  up  to  all  Americans,  white  and  black,  male 
and  female,  the  hope  of  a  new  Nation  for  all,  in  which 
the  passions  of  the  past  will  be  remembered  but  as 
history.  If  we  would  be  broadly  wise,  we  must  regard 
reconstruction,  not  as  a  Northern  question,  but  as 
American.  Although  it  was  the  South  that  erred  and 
we  are  of  the  North,  it  is  unwise  to  perpetuate  even 
sectional  memories,  but  the  rather  should  we  strive 
that  in  the  coming  Continental  Republic  we  be  nothing 
less,  or  nothing  else,  as  none  certainly  can  be  anything 
more,  than  true  Americans  and  worthy  sons  of  Wash- 
ington the  Good,  the  Wise,  the  broadly  Great. 

So  much  for  the  spirit  and  general  purpose  we  should 
have.  Let  us,  for  a  moment,  glance  at  some  of  the 
unltizing  elements  which,  without  the  sacrifice  of 
aught  that  is  essential  or  important,  can  be  made  heal- 
ing and  attractive. 

In  addition  to  that  nominal  concession  to  Southern 
conviction  already  indicated,  but  which  in  truth 
would  be  a  floating  sea  barrier  against  the  waves  of 
secession,  we  may  mention : 

Second  —  A  new  name  for  the  new  nation,  and, 
while  nominally  a  concession,  that  this,  too,  may  be  a 
gain,  such  a  name  should  be  selected  as  will  not  imply 
plurality  of  thought  or  perpetuate  by  suggestion  the 
idea  that  our  National  Government  is  any  longer  a 
Union,  Confederation  or  Alliance  of  States  as  such, 
when  in  truth  and  law  it  is  altogether  and  exclusively 
a  Union  of  the  People  resident  in  the  States  and  Terri- 


[8] 


tories  over  which  the  nation  has  sway.  Whether  such 
name  shall  be  Freedomia,  Washingtonia,  Columbia  or 
America,  or  whether  it  be  the  Continental  Republic  or 
simply  the  Great  Republic  of  America,  is  wholly  unim- 
portant ;  and  though  of  itself  considered  it  is  equally 
unimportant  that  there  should  be  any  change  of  name, 
as  its  influence  upon  the  feelings  of  the  Southern 
whites  would  be  vast,  and  would  tend  to  awaken  new 
hope,  new  pride  and  a  new  affection,  while  it  will  In 
no  degree  impair  our  own,  nothing  but  unwise  narrow- 
ness could  forbid  the  change. 

Third — Though  under  no  circumstances  should  our 
glorious  and  beautiful  banner  of  stars  and  stripes  be 
abolished,  for  under  it  we  have  in  four  wars  fought  to 
victory,  and  under  it  we  must  fight  through  forty  more 
if  needful  and  ever  to  triumph — still  one  great  out- 
lined star  upon  our  field  of  blue  could  compass  the 
galaxy  of  a  star  for  a  State,  which,  without  detracting 
from  our  pride  and  love  or  marring  the  flag  artistically, 
would  better  symbolize  the  new  nation  and  win  for 
itself  in  the  South  an  attachment  from  even  the  once 
rebellious  such  as  it  would  be  difficult  for  them  to  be- 
Btow  upon  a  banner  they  have  warred  against  in  all 
the  earnestness  of  honest  hatred.  While  preserving  the 
old  flag,  its  modification,  symbolical  as  it  would  be  of 
national  encompassing  unity  for  the  Great  Republic, 
would  be  a  message  to  all  the  people  of  the  land  and 
a  new  announcement  to  the  world  that  THE  MISSIOS  or 
AMERICA  13  NOT  TO  IMPOSE,  BUT  TO  LIFT  ALL  YOKES  ! 

Fourth — Another  measure  of  concessive  healing, 
which  would  also  be  a  national  gain,  would  be,  making 
the  tenure  of  all  minor  ministerial  offices  to  be  that  of 
good  behavior.  Except  in  the  name  of  the  new  Govern- 
ment, the  most  marked  difference  between  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  Confederate  States  and  that  of  the  United 
States  was  on  this  very  point.  At  the  time  that  de> 
facto  Government  was  launched,  the  change  was  gen- 
erally acknowledged  to  be  an  improvement  upon  our 
own  uncertain  system  of  tenure,  and  that,  too,  despite 
of  our  dislike  and  condemnation  of  the  Confederacy 
itself.  Adopted  by  the  new  nation,  with  some  qualifi- 
cations which  will  be  adverted  to  elsewhere,  it  would 
tend  to  cordiality  of  Southern  feelings  toward  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  in  this  large  point  of  view  should  not  be 
neglected. 

Filth— Provision  must  be  made  for  the  peaceable  ex 
pansion  of  the  nation,  so  as  ultimately  to  comprehend 
the  continent.  In  no  other  way  can  the  doctrine  of 
Monroe  be  made  vital  without  war,  imperiling  our 
ocean  commerce.  It  is  not,  however,  in  that  point  of 
view  that  the  subject  is  here  adverted  to,  but  as  a  pro- 
vision which  would  tend  to  foster  a  common  pride,  as 
well  as  a  new  one,  on  the  part  of  all  the  people  of  the 
land,  thus  tending  to  that  unity  of  feeling  which  is  the 
very  essence  of  true  nationality. 

Our  own  unwillingness  to  allow  the  segregation  of  a 
portion  of  our  national  domain  without  the  unbiased 
and  free  consent  of  the  entire  nation,  warns  us  not  to 
annex  any  State  or  Territory  which  has  seceded  from 
another  nation,  without  that  other  cation's  assent 
(unless  such  State  or  Territory  is  burdened  with  op- 
p-essions  similar  to  those  which  stung  our  forefathers 
to  war  for  independence,  which  oppressions  are  in  no 
peaceable  constitutional  way  remediable),  in  which 


case  we  should  regard  it  as  a  violation  of  what  ought  to 
be  international  law  to  interfere.  Our  necessities, 
lowever,  upon  this  continent,  as  well  as  insecurity  to 
ife  and  property  in  Mexico  and  the  oppressions  of  the 
poor  in  other  lands,  all  bid  us  make  some  prac  ical, 
ast  and  general  invitory  provisions  for  the  accession  to 
our  protection  and  sway  of  territories  not  now  included 
within  our  boundaries. 

Sixth — A  system  of  national  education,  tending  to 
that  even  diffusion  of  moderate  intelligence  and  Ameri- 
can sentiment  which  everywhere  results  in  security  to 
person  and  property,  and  thereby  stimulates  individual 
enterprise  and  diversified  interests,  and  leads  to  the 
discovery  and  development  of  wealth,  even  in  a  wilder- 
ness. 

RECONSTRUCTION  PROPER. 

Though  the  foregoing  are  all  non-essential  features 
for  our  new  Government,  they  are  desirable  as  tending 
to  re-beget  the  sentiment  of  unity  and  nationality  with- 
out which  a  simple  legal  sway  is  too  costly  to  maintain, 
and  without  further  preface  we  may  pass  to  a  consider- 
ation of  the  essential  characteristics  of  our  new  Na- 
tional Government : 

First — It  must  be  no  other  than  a  Government  of 
the  people,  republican  in  form,  and  based  radically  in 
the  principles  of  self-government,  which,  in  brief,  are 
these  : 

1.  The  will  of  the  governed,  freely  and  fully  ex- 
pressed, in  accordance  with  the  fundamental  law,  must 
be  the  supreme  rule  of  the  land. 

2.  The  laws  must  be  executed  by  those  who  are  le- 
gally selected  for  that  purpose,  in  accordance  with  the 
fundamental    law  and    enactments    made    pursuant 
thereto. 

8.  All  laws  must  be  submitted  to  as  if  constitutional, 
until  officially  pronounced  otherwise  by  the  Judiciary, 
asting  upon  a  case  legally  before  it  for  adjudication. 

Any  Government,  whether  monarchial  or  republican, 
if  based  on  the  foregoing  principles,  is  a  self-govern- 
ment. 

Second— Whatever  may  have  been  the  true  interpre- 
tation of  our  present  National  Constitution  as  to  the 
sovereignty  of  each  of  our  States  individually,  under 
our  new  Constitution,  with  no  room  for  doubt  or  ques- 
tion as  to  the  fact,  the  nation,  exclusively  and  alone, 
must  possess  the  attributes  of  sovereignty,  including 
supreme  sway  over  all  the  land  and  in  all  its  parts  ; 
and  in  order  most  effectually  to  secure  this  end,  as 
well  as  to  secure  throughout  the  nation  that  desirable 
uniformity  of  even  State  fundamental  law  on  all  points 
of  magnitude  or  importance,  the  powers  of  the  State 
Governments  of  the  future,  instead  of  being  derived 
directly  and  solely  from  the  people  resident  in  each 
State,  and  having  no  more  than  a  tacit  or  inferential 
sanction  by  the  nation,  must  be  derived  from  the  na- 
tion itself  in  Congress  assembled.  Such  powers  should 
be  conferred  by  Congress  ordaining  and  authorizing  the 
Department  of  State  to  issue,  under  the  Great  Seal  of 
the  Nation,  a  uniform  series  of  Charters  or  Constitu- 
tions for  State  and  Territorial  Governments,  such  Con- 
stitutions requiring  no  further  sanction  from  the  peo- 
ple of  each  State  or  Territory,  in  order  to  their  being 
valid  as  State  Constitutions,  than  for  a  majority  of  the 
duly  qualified  voters  to  exercise  their  rights  as  such, 


[9] 


by  voting  to  fill  the  elective  offices  of  such  State  Gov 
ernments;  which  voting  should  be  deemed  such  a 
"  consent  of  the  governed  "  as  would  confer  the  just 
Inherent  powers  of  the  people  upon  the  Government  of 
their  State.  Until  a  majority  of  legal  voters  in  any 
State  exercise  their  voting  rights,  such  State  should  be 
excluded  from  representation  in  Congress  and  should 
be  governed  by  military  law. 

Congress  should  also  have  the  sole  power  to  amend 
or  modify  such  State  Constitutions,  upon  petition  of 
the  Legislatures  of  the  States;  but  all  amendments 
which  should  be  made  should  be  uniform  and  universal 
In  their  application  throughout  the  land. 

Third— The  Executive  Department  of  the  new  Govern- 
ment should  be  separated  into  two  distinct  branches, 
the  civil  and  the  military,  both  of  which  under  our 
present  Government  are  lodged  in  the  President,  who 
should  continue  to  be  the  civil  Chief  Executive,  while 
the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  should 
be  the  military  Chief  Executive,  and  like  the  President 
subordinate  to  no  higher  officer.  He  (General  Grant) 
should  be  constituted  our  Military  President,  and  re- 
tained as  such  with  Presidential  pay. 

Vacancies  which  may  occur  in  the  office  of  Comman- 
der in-Chief  should  be  filled,  for  the  time  being,  by 
appointment  of  the  President  until  the  assembling  of 
Congress,  when  the  House  of  Representatives  should 
nominate  a  permanent  officer,  who  should  be  commis- 
sioned by  the  President  when  confirmed  as  such  officer 
by  the  Senate. 

As  the  President  should  be  solely  subject,  and  ac- 
cording to  law,  to  the  people  who  elected  him,  or  to 
their  representatives  in  Congress  assembled,  so,  too, 
the  Commander-in-Chief  should  be  solely  subject,  ac- 
cording to  law,  to  the  representatives  of  the  people  in 
Congress  assembled.  He  should  therefore  be  subject 
to  general  instruction  solely  by  Congress,  by  joint  res- 
olution, and  he  should  therefore  likewise  report  offi- 
cially solely  to  that  body,  transmitting  the  report  of 
his  three  Cabinet  officers,  the  Secretary  of  the  Army 
and  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  the  Secretary  of  In- 
dian Affairs,  who  should  no  longer  be  members  of  the 
Presidential  Cabinet. 

The  two  Chief  Executives,  however,  should  be  priv- 
ileged to  confer  with  each  other  relative  to  the  public 
Interests,  in  order  to  derive  such  information  as  prima- 
rily pertains  to  the  department  of  the  other,  by  either 
deemed  needful  to  the  fulfillment  of  his  own  official 
duties. 

Such  a  divorce  of  the  civil  and  military  executorship 
of  the  nation  would  infinitely  increase  the  difficulty  of 
coercive  usurpation,  either  by  a  President  or  Com- 
mander-in-Ch!ef,  and  provide  the  means  for  an  effi- 
cient Government  at  all  times,  and  transmutable  in- 
stantly, at  the  will  of  Congress,  either  over  the  whole 
nation  or  over  any  one  State  or  Territory,  from  a  civil 
Government  for  peace  to  a  military  Government  for 
Insurrection  or  war,  the  acts  of  either  of  which  should 
be  legal. 

Fourth— Our  future  civil  officers,  State  and  National 
alike,  and  whether  high  or  low,  must  be  rendered  effec- 
tually responsible  to  the  governed  people  and  to  their 
laws,  by  our  several  Constitutions  ordaining  that  all 
minor  commissioned  executive  and  judicial  officers 


shall  hold  office,  not  as  now  during  the  pleasure  of  the 
President,  or  during  an  expirable  term,  but  until  re- 
moved by  the  operation  of  a  cheap  and  speedy  system 
of  impeachment,  by  the  peeple  themselves  when  prac- 
ticable, and,  when  not  practicable,  then  by  their  legis- 
lative representatives.  Until  by  constitutional  en- 
actment (and  not  merely  by  repealable  law,  which  pol- 
iticians will  rescind  if  they  bave  the  power)  we  make 
it  more  the  intereat  of  our  minor  executive  officers  to 
act  uprightly  and  attend  personally  to  their  official  du- 
ties (and  thereby  retain  office  with  only  proper 
compensations  attached)  than  it  is  to  make  all  they 
can,  both  uprightly  and  corruptly,  out  of  any  office 
they  are  able  to  secure  (either  by  appointment  or  elec- 
tion) during  the  brief  term  they  may  hold  it,  just  so 
long  must  we  expect  such  gross  official  corruption  on 
the  part  of  our  public  officers  as  now  disgraces  the 
Government  and  disgusts  the  people.  While  our 
future  officers  should  be  placed  in  a  position  in  which 
self-respect  would  be  possible,  they  must  also  be 
brought  to  feel  themselves  but  men,  and  our  own  hired 
servants  at  that,  and  not  our  lords  and  masters,  to 
whom  pertain  large  official  revenues,  while  others  are 
paid  to  do  their  proper  work.  Such  ideas  and  abuses 
of  government  may  be  tolerable  in  Russia,  France  or 
Britain,  but  they  will  no  longer  answer  in  America,  for 
the  people  have  awakened  from  political  lethargy,  as 
lions  in  their  lair  by  hunters  caught  sleeping,  and  are 
resolved  to  shake  off  all  their  shackles,  those  of  the 
politician  as  well  as  those  of  slavery,  and  purge  their 
Governments  to  the  very  core. 

Fifth — The  SAFETY  of  our  Governments  should  be 
secured  from  dangerous  encroachments,  either  of  the 
Chief  Executive,  of  his  Cabinet  officers,  or  of  the 
Supreme  Judiciary,  by  rendering  all  those  officers 
iable  to  removal  from  office  by  the  simple  passage  of 
a  bill  for  that  purpose  by  the  Legislature  (as  well  in 
the  States  as  in  the  nation),  either  with  or  without 
assigned  cause,  requiring,  however,  for  the  passage  of 
such  a  bill,  a  three-fourths  or  a  four-fifths  vote. 

Sixth — The  dangerous  subordination  of  inferior  civil 
officers  to  their  executive  superiors,  instead  of  that 
safe,  sole  subordination  to  the  law  which  only  should 
be  tolerated  in  a  .Republic,  should  be  entirely  abol- 
ished. This  can.  best  be  effected  by  confining  the 
appointing  power  of  the  Chief  Executive  (whether 
State  or  National)  as  well  as  the  appointing  power  of 
Cabinet  officers,  to  the  filling  of  vacancies  which  happen 
by  deaths,  resignations,  superannuations  and  removal* 
by  the  Courts— in  other  words,  by  divorcing  the  power 
of  removal  from  the  power  to  appoint  officers,  con- 
ferring the  power  of  removal  upon  the  people,  through, 
local  Grand  Juries  and  Courts,  while  vesting  the  power 
of  appointment,  where  our  present  Constitution  lodges 
it,  in  the  hands  of  the  Chief  Executive,  not  only  of  the 
nation  but  likewise  of  the  individual  States,  the  con- 
firmation by  the  Senate  of  all  appointments  being 
necessary  before  any  officer  can  receive  pay  for  his 
services. 

In  military  affairs  and  government,  the  subordinate 
obedience  of  inferior  officers  to  their  superiors  is  in- 
dispensable ;  but  in  civil  affairs  and  government,  it  is 
as  dangerous  as  it  is  needless  and  unwise.  The  obedi- 
ence of  laborers  and  non-commissioned  clerks  to  com* 


[10] 


missioned  civil  officers  of  the  Government,  is  the  only 
need,  and  should  be  the  limit  of  obedience  for  inferiors 
In  the  civil  service  to  their  superiors,  and  the  Legisla- 
ture should  be  the  judge  of  what  officers  and  clerks 
•hould  receive  commissions.  Obedience  and  subordi- 
nation of  every  commissioned  civil  officer  should  b« 
Bolely  toward  the  LAW,  and  not  to  any  superior  officer  ; 
and  toward  the  law,  ordained  by  the  whole  people, 
•uch  obedience  should  be  absolute,  complete  and  per- 
fect ;  and  such  perfect  obedience  and  fidelity  to  the 
law  should  be  legally  deemed,  what  it  is  in  fact,  that 
official  virtue  which  merits  immunity  from  removal, 
whether  at  the  direct  solicitation  of  any  one  or  a  dozen 
politicians,  whether  in  or  out  of  office,  and  however 
high  or  low,  or  by  that  seeminply  more  fair,  though  in- 
finitely more  corrupt  and  disheartening  process,  the 
nomination  of  some  other  man  to  fill  the  post  by  a  po- 
litical Convention  which  the  official  incumbent  is  too 
poor  or  too  proud  to  buy,  even  if  not  too  conscien- 
tious. 

Seventh— The  EFFICIENCY  of  our  new  Governments 
must  be  secured  by  rendering  all  officers,  judicial 
and  executive,  independent  of  purely  local  prejudices 
and  antipathies,  by  conferring  the  right  of  appeal  to  a 
Central  Supreme  Court  of  Impeachment  upon  any  offi- 
cer who  may  claim  to  be  removed  from  office,  not  for 
neglect  or  violation  of  the  law  he  is  appointed  to  exe- 
cute, but  in  reality  because  of  its  firm  and  efficient  en- 
forcement ;  or  if  removed  by  a  packed  or  prejudiced 
Jury  because  he  may  have  refused  to  pervert  the  office 
he  fills  from  its  constitutional  intent,  to  the  advance- 
ment of  the  personal  interests  or  the  personal  gratifi- 
cation of  any  political  aspirant,  even  though  he  be  a 
President,  Governor,  National  Senator  or  Representa- 
tive, or  a  purse-proud  owner  of  them  all,  or  whether 
he  be  only  a  petty,  drunken,  shoulder-striking,  strum- 
pet-monging,  professional  political  nominator. 

In  like  manner,  if  any  commissioned  civil  officer 
•hould  fail  to  fulfill  the  duties  which  the  law  enjoins 
upon  him,  whether  owing  to  his  own  incapacity  or  per- 
sonal antipathies,  or  because  the  law  might  be  locally 
unpopular,  should  the  Grand  Jury  neglect  to  impeach 
or  indict  him,  the  Government  itself  should  have  the 
game  power  to  indict  such  officer  for  trial  In  the  local 
Court  that  any  one  of  the  people  should  everywhere 
possess,  when  cognizant  of  official  neglect,  extrava- 
gance or  perversion,  through  the  Grand  Jury ;  and  the 
Government  should  also  have  the  same  right  of  appeal 
from  a  perverse  verdict  of  a  local  Court  to  the  Central 
Court  of  Impeachment  which  each  officer  should  pos- 
sess for  his  own  vindication  and  defense. 

An  Appellate  Court  of  Impeachment,  therefore,  be- 
comes an  important  new  feature  in  our  new  Govern- 
ments, and  that  each  State  may  be  as  nearly  similar  in 
organization,  efficiency  and  excellence  as  our  new 
National  Government,  each  State  should  possess  such 
an  Appellate  Court  of  Impeachment. 

Eighth— With  the  election  of  every  officer  (muni- 
cipal, State  or  National)  who  has  either  a  vote,  voice 
or  veto  upon  the  framing  of  the  laws,  a  vice  officer 
should  be  elected,  whose  functions  should  be  to  fill 
vacancies  which  occur  by  death,  resignation  or  re- 
moval of  their  principals  from  office,  which  removals 
could  advantageously  be  effected  in  the  following  man- 


ner :  The  President,  Commander-in-Chief,  any  member 
of  either  of  their  Cabinets,  or  any  Judge  of  the  Su- 
preme Court,  should  be  removable,  with  or  without 
cause  declared,  by  the  passage  in  Congress  of  a  bill 
for  that  purpose,  by  so  large  a  majority  vote  that  a 
mere  trifling  partisan  ascendency  in  Congress  could 
not  impart  instability  to  the  Government,  by  capri- 
cious assault  on  the  President  or  other  obnoxious  offi- 
cer ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  majority  vote  should 
not  be  so  large  that  the  proper  independence  of  the 
President  could  ever  with  impunity  develop  into  inso- 
lence and  defiance  of  the  representatives  of  the  people 
in  Congress  assembled.  When  the  Vice  Presidency 
becomes  vacant,  either  by  death  or  promotion,  a  sps- 
cial  election  of  the  people  should  speedily  be  held  to 
fill  the  office ;  but  a  vacancy  in  the  other  Congression- 
ally  deposable  offices  should  be  filled  by  appointment, 
except  the  Commander-in-Chief. 

The  removal  of  a  Senator  or  Representative  could  be 
effected  by  a  vote  of  the  people,  to  be  provided  for  in  a 
way  which  would  confer  upon  the  people's  right  of  pe- 
tition that  importance  and  power  which  it  merits,  but 
which  it  never  has  received.  Upon  petition  of  half  the 
qualified  voters  of  any  Congressional  District  or  State, 
the  Chief  Executive  of  such  State  should  be  required  to 
call  a  special  election,  and  submit  the  question  Shall  A 
B,  Senator,  be  deposed  ?  Upon  every  ballot,  whether 
negative  or  affirmative,  the  name  of  a  new  vice  officer 
should  be  printed,  and  if  a  majority  of  the  votes  entitled 
to  be  cast  are  in  favor  of  deposition,  the  former  vice 
legis'ator  should  become  the  chief  legislator,  while 
the  party  receiving  the  greatest  number  of  votes 
should  become  the  new  vice  officer.  Neglect  to  vote 
at  such  special  elections  would  be  indorsive  of  an  in- 
cumbent officer,  and  no  penalty  should  attach  to  such 
neglect. 

The  removal  of  a  Governor  could  be  effected  simi- 
larly upon  petition  to  the  Speaker  of  the  House  for  a 
special  election,  and  in  addition  to  removal  by  Con- 
gress, both  the  President  and  Commander-in-Chief 
should  be  liable  to  similar  popular  impeachment  at  an 
election  to  be  called  by  the  national  Speaker  of  the 
House  on  petition  of  the  Legislatures  of  three-fifths  of 
the  States. 

The  need  of  some  effectual  provision,  designed  to  be- 
get a  more  thorough  sense  of  accountability  to  the  peo- 
ple than  our  Presidents,  Governors  and  legislators 
have  grown  to  manifesting,  is  necessary  in  order  to 
base  the  nation  radically  upon  the  principles  of  self- 
government,  and  in  order  to  constitute  ourselves  to 
the  very  core  a  Government  of  the  People. 

It  will  be  asked,  and  properly,  what  power  of  elec- 
tion will  then  be  left  to  the  people?  And  further,  in 
what  respects  would  a  Government  in  which  the  people 
do  not  periodically  elect  all  their  own  officers,  differ 
from  a  monarchy  ? 

Let  us  consider  these  questions  in  the  reverse  order 
of  their  statement : 

1.  The  essence  of  monarchy  Is,  that  birth  and 
not  selection,  determines  the  occupancy  of  the  chief 
executive  chair  or  throne.  The  monarch  of  even  a 
self  governed  monarchy,  such  as  that  of  Great  Britain, 
is  not  constituted  such  upon  account  of  special  capac- 
ity, integrity  and  fitness  ;  nor  is  his  or  her  retention 


[11] 


dependent  upon  efficiency  as  an  Executive,  or  upon 
fidelity  to  the  law,  which  as  Chief  Executive  of  the  na- 
tion it  is  his  or  her  duty  to  enforce.  In  consequence 
of  these  two  facts,  a  monarch  is  in  no  fair  sense  of  the 
term  a  representative  of  the  people.  A  necessary  con- 
sequence of  this  fact  is,  that  all  the  minor  executive 
officers  who  hold  post  by  the  commission  of  the  mon- 
arch are  likewise  in  no  sense  representatives  of  the 
people,  and  when  removable  at  all  are  generally  re- 
movable only  by  other  officers  of  the  monarch's  own 
appointment.  A  monarch,  therefore,  is  not  only  an  ir- 
responsible Chief  Executive  of  law,  but  he  is  in  addi- 
tion the  recognized  head  of  a  hereditary  nobility,  and 
so  recognized  only  because  of  birth.  And  he  is  Chief 
Executive  of  the  nation  only  because  the  hereditary 
nobility,  so  called,  claims  and  is  permitted  an  equal 
voice  in  the  Government  with  that  of  all  the  governed 
people  put  together.  The  essence  of  republicanism,  on 
the  contrary,  is  the  exclusive  and  sole  government  of 
the  land  by  the  people,  through  their  own  representa- 
tives, to  whom  the  people,  during  continuance  in  office' 
delegate  their  own  inherent  powers.  Some  of  the  offi- 
cers of  a  republic  are  the  direct  representatives  of  the 
people,  because  directly  elected  by  the  people.  Such, 
for  instance,  as  our  Congressmen,  State  legislators, 
Governors  and  Presidents.  Others  are  indirect  rep- 
resentatives of  the  people,  because  they  are  constituted 
officers  not  by  the  direct  voice  of  the  people,  but  by 
other  officers  who  are  such  representatives  of  the  peo- 
ple. The  point  which  this  paper  urges  is,  that  all  the  offi- 
cers of  our  own  Republic  and  of  its  subordinate  repub- 
lican States  shall  be  representatives  of  the  people,  for 
the  additional  reason  that  the  people,  while  havingthe 
power  to  remove  them  from  office,  notwithstanding 
permit  them  to  remain  officers,  thereby  conferring 
alike  on  them  and  on  the  Government  of  which  they 
are  a  part  the  sanction  of  a  full  and  free  u  consent  of 
the  governed,"  thus  constituting  them  their  direct  as 
well  as  indirect  representatives. 

2.  The  intention  of  elections  by  the  people  is  pre- 
sumed to  be  that  of  securing  trustworthy  officers  who 
will  both  economically  and  efficiently  execute  the  laws 
ordained  by  the  whole  people.  It  is  presumed  that  if 
an  officer  deserves  re-election  by  the  people  when  his 
term  has  expired  he  will  be  re-elected,  because  the 
people  have  it  in  their  power  to  re-elect  him.  We  all 
know,  however,  that  through  the  intervention  of  man- 
ipulable  political  Conventions,  (which  cannot  be  pre- 
vented, and  all  attempt  at  the  thorough  purification  of 
which  is  both  hopeless  and  absurd),  such  a  presumption 
is  untrue.  No  man  can  be  re-elected  to  office  in  these 
days  simply  because  of  fidelity  to  official  duty.  No 
one  can  either  be  elected  or  re-elected  who  fails  to  se- 
cure the  nomination  of  a  party  Convention,  and  but 
very  few  can  secure  that  if  they  have  the  hardihood  to 
deny  importunate  political  nominators  their  claims  to 
eub-officership  in  order  to  be  faithful  to  the  people  and 
to  the  law  as  officers. 

While  one  intent  of  direct  elections  by  the  people 
is  to  secure,  even  hi  executive  posts,  officers  who  shall 
be  the  direct  representatives  of  the  people,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  such  officers  are  in  reality  the  direct  represent- 
atives only  of  professional,  wirepulling  and  ballot-box 
stuffing  politicians,  and  are  at  best  representatives  of 


the  people  only  in  a  very  indirect,  remote  and  exas- 
perating sense,  and  able  with  impunity  to  defy  alike 
public  decency,  the  common  sense  and  the  deepest  and 
most  sacred  convictions  of  the  people,  over  whom  they 
rule  with  desperate  extravagance  and  a  haughty  mien. 
Not  till  we  substitute  for  the  periodical  elections  of  our 
minor  executive  and  judicial  officers,  the  principle  of 
removing  each  only  for  merited  removal,  will  we  attain 
either  economy,  respectability,  efficiency  or  true  rep- 
resentativism  in  our  Government.  If  we  can  better 
secure  the  object  we  have  in  view  for  holding  elections 
by  which  to  secure  minor  executive  and  judicial  offi- 
cers by  some  other  method,  common  sense  dictates 
tLat  we  should  adopt  that  other  method.  Removal  by 
the  people  in  essential  principle  is  the  same  thing  as 
election  by  the  people,  but  would  be  better,  because 
men  can  be  removed  for  cause,  although  they  cannot 
be  elected  for  merit,  but  only  for  securing  a  political 
Convention's  nomination,  whether  honorably  or  shame- 
fully. 

8.  Under  such  a  system,  the  only  class  of  officers 
which  the  people  would  then  be  required  to  elect  would 
be,  those  officers  who  either  frame  or  veto  the  laws ; 
and  this  is  indispensable  to  all  self-government.  More- 
over, it  is  all  that  is  indispensable.  Provided  only 
that  the  will  of  the  governed  be  enacted  into  law,  and 
that  such  law  be  enforced  by  those  ordained  of  the 
people  in  their  Constitutions,  it  is  a  matter  of  no  con- 
sequence whatever  either  as  to  how  such  officers  are 
selected  or  as  to  how  long  they  continue  to  exercise 
official  functions.  Our  present  National  Government, 
with  only  Congressmen  and  the  President  directly  ap^ 
pointed  by  the  people,  is  as  truly  republican  as  is  the 
Government  of  any  State  in  which  all  the  officers  are 
voted  for  annually,  or  frequently,  and  equally  efficient, 
if  not  more  creditably  officered,  despite  even  of  the 
corruptions  of  Washington.  If  the  people  had  no 
other  officers  to  elect  than  their  legislators,  State  and 
National,  it  would  be  comparatively  cheap  and  easy  to 
secure  good  legislation.  As  there  would  be  no  oppor- 
tunity for  combinations  of  influence  among  aspirants 
for  diverse  offices,  each  reciprocally  to  help  the  other 
in  a  nominating  Convention,  the  great  source  of  cor- 
ruption in  such  Conventions  would  be  abolished,  and 
when  State  or  National  Conventions  did  assemble  it 
would  be  for  the  single  purpose  of  securing  a  repre- 
sentative nomination  of  a  Governor  and  Vice  Governor, 
or  a  Senator  and  Vice  Senator,  or  a  President  and 
Vice  President,  together  with  the  more  important  aim 
of  enunciating  authoritatively  the  political  faith  of  the 
party.  Under  such  circumstances  aspirants  could  not 
combine  corruptly,  but  would,  of  necessity,  be  compet- 
itors ;  and  having  no  offices  to  pledge  to  delegates  for 
services  rendered,  corruption  would  be  banished  (of 
course,  with  exceptions),  either  by  being  unmasked, 
by  its  effects  ;  for  it  would  need  to  cast  off  all  disguise  0^  , 
and  assume  the  naked  form  of  criminal  bribery.  As 
no  personal  advantages  could  accrue  to  delegates  to 
such  Conventions,  either  the  delegates  would  need  to 
have  their  lost  time  and  expenses  paid  by  the  parties 
they  represent,  or  else  none  would  consent  to  serve  as 
delegates  but  men  of  such  deep  and  honorable  political 
convictions  that  they  would  be  willing  to  sacrifice  from 
their  own  time  and  earnings  the  needful  cost.  The 


[12] 


proffer  of  a  bribe  to  such  men  would  draw  down  upon 
the  head  of  the  corruptionist  such  a  thunderbolt  o 
public  denunciation  and  exposure  as  would  rend  an 
rive  forever  his  chances  of  elevation  to  any  post  o 
honor,  trust,  or  profit  in  the  new  Republic,  or  in  anj 
of  its  States,  for  it  could  and  should  be  made  a  pen! 
tentiary  offense. 

In  no  other  way  than  some  such  as  the  foregoing  cai 
we  gain  for  the  nation  Governments  which  shall  be  re 
publican  in  form,  based  radically  in  the  principles  o 
self-government,  rendered  effectively  responsible  t 
the  whole  governed  people,  efficient  against  local  prej 
udices  and  interests,  independent  of  the  dictation  o 
superior  officers  and  politicians,  and  economical  in 
character ;  and  crowned  with  such  transcendent  excel 
lence,  the  Great  Republic  of  America  will  become  th 
hope  ot  the  oppressed  throughout  the  world,  an  inspi 
ration  to  mankind,  and  the  dread  of  the  giant  despot! 
who  yet  dare  tread  our  globe. 

Ninth— This  paper  could  not  be  radical  and  complete 
if  silent  about  women  voting ;  and  it  is  plain,  that  by 
Such  a  curtailment  of  the  number  of  officers  to  be  voted 
for,  and  with  the  abolition  of  that  system  of  ruffianism 
which  now  grows  out  of  the  perverted  use  of  political 
Conventions  for  multitudinous  nominations,  which 
ruffianism  too  often  manifests  itself  at  the  election 
polls,  the  question  of  women  voting  under  the  new 
Constitution  would  be  a  very  different  one,  practically 
from  voting  under  the  present  order  of  affairs.  There 
is  every  reason  why  women  should  vote  whenever  man 
•bould,  and  no  oftener.  She  is  subject  to  the  laws,  and 
is  rational.  She  therefore  has  a  right  to  both  vote  and 
voice  in  framing  them.  If  she  has  property,  she  is 
taxed  to  support  the  Government,  and  why  should  she 
be  denied  a  voice  and  vote  in  determining  how  much 
the  expenses  of  the  Government  shall  be.  She,  and 
all  dependent  little  ones,  no  less  than  the  aged,  must 
Buffer  if  a  husband,  son,  brother,  or  lover  is  drafted 
Into  the  army  in  time  of  war,  and  why  shall  she  be  de- 
nied all  voice  and  vote  upon  the  question  of  whether 
or  no  there  shall  be  a  war,  and  if  so,  how  vigorously 
and  speedily  it  shall  be  prosecuted  to  a  victorious  ter- 
mination. Her  softening  and  elevating  influence  in 
America  is  as  needful  in  political  matters  as  it  is  in  so- 
cial affairs  ;  for  experience  has  shown  that  respect  of 
man  in  America  for  woman  it  more  omnipotent  to  ban- 
ish from  his  imagination  even,  brutality  and  vulgarity, 
no  less  than  selfish  narrowness,  than  Christian,  Jew- 
ish and  Deistic  faith  in  a  male  God  of  love  and  justice 
all  combined.  Woman  is  not  only  human,  but  as  no- 
bly as  she  is  tenderly  human  ;  and  having  been  guilty, 
as  ft  sex,  of  no  greater  crime  than  bearing  the  nation  a 
horde  of  eons,  who  seem  to  feel  that  the  possession  of 
a  pair  or  two  of  old  pants  is  a  better  voting  qualification 
than  the  possession  of  human  nature  and  intelligence, 
why,  for  such  a  crime,  should  she  be  debarred  the  rights 
of  human  nature  ? 

Still,  public  opinion  is  not  yet  up  to  the  mark  which 
demands  the  vote  for  woman,  not  even  in  Utah,  where 
It  would  seem  to  be  so  sadly  needed.  But  as  it  is  one  of 
the  inevitable  certainties  of  the  immediate  future,  if 
the  new  Congress  of  the  Nation  does  not  feel  free  to  an 
tlclpate  fate,  at  least  let  us  be  sure  that  body  has 
power  to  yield  to  the  inexorable  goddess  (whether 


Pate  or  Woman !)  when  the  demand  shall  be  made. 
Let  us  not  disfigure  our  coming  Constitution  by  any- 
where within  it  inserting  either  the  word  "  white  "  or 
"  male,"  for  "  human  "  is  the  only  term  that  covers 
the  "governed,"  from  whom  the  just  powers  of  every 
Government  can  be  alone  derived. 

Tenth — We  should  abolish  all  indirectness  in  voting 
for  President  as  well  as  for  national  Senators.  The 
original  intention  of  the  Presidential  Electoral  College 
was  chiefly  to  secure  in  the  Presidential  election  that 
same  exaggerated  vote  to  the  whites  of  the  South  which 
slavery  gave  them  in  Congress.  Slavery  having  been 
abolished,  the  Electoral  College  must  go  with  it,  aa 
well  as  that  peculiar  misenumeration  of  the  people  of 
the  South  which  also  grew  out  of  slavery.  It  ia  not, 
however,  solely  owing  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  that 
the  Electoral  College  should  be  abolished  as  unneces- 
sary and  unjust,  but  because  it  secures  a  President  for 
the  nation  who  is  not  so  directly  and  so  accurately  the 
representative  of  the  people  as  our  Chief  Executive  and 
our  legislative  vetoer  ought  to  be.  The  man  who  re- 
ceives the  largest  vote  of  all  the  people  throughout  the 
entire  land,  not  excluding  the  national  citizens  resi- 
dent in  the  Territories,  should  be  declared  the  National 
President,  whereas  under  the  present  system,  a  man 
who  should  receive  a  large  majority  of  the  people's 
votes  might  be  legally  declared  defeated.  With  the 
system  of  direct  voting,  a  result  so  utterly  at  war  with 
the  principles  of  self  government  never  could  be 
reached.  In  like  manner  the  election  of  National  Sen- 
ators should  be  ordained  to  be  by  the  direct  vote  of  the 
people,  for  the  developments  of  recent  times,  and  not 
only  in  newly  peopled  States,  but  in  the  very  centers 
of  Eastern  population,  show  that  the  election  of  whole 
Legislatures  is  very  often  made  with  chief  reference  to 
their  votes  for  the  National  Senator,  to  the  great  injury 
of  the  legitimate  legislation  of  the  State.  Inasmuch  as 
the  election  of  Senators  by  the  State  Legislatures, 
equally  with  the  election  of  our  President  by  an  Electo- 
ral College,  is  a  remnant  of  the  scheme  of  State  Sover- 
eignty (or,  if  you  please,  one  of  our  Constitutional  pro- 
ductive germs  of  such  a  scheme),  the  feature  should  be 
utterly  obliterated. 

The  recognition  of  any  State,  as  such,  as  possessed 
of  any  voice  or  power  in  tbe  new  National  Government 
ust  be  denied,  that  the  people  resident  in  each  State 
may  be  solely  represented,  which  can  be  done  without 
denying  to  the  people  of  each  State  equal  representa- 
tion in  the  Senate.  Under  the  new  Constitution,  State 
boundaries  should  become  the  boundaries  of  National 
Senatorial  Districts,  in  which  the  people  should  rote 
directly  for  their  Senators,  as  in  Congressional  Districts 
.hey  now  do  for  Congressmen,  but  one  National  Sena- 
tor being  electable  at  one  election  by  the  people  of  an 
entire  State,  just  as  one  Congressman  only  is  electable 
at  each  Congressional  election  in  each  Congressional 
Mstrict. 

Eleventh—When  we  abolish  the  representation  of 
he  individual  States,  as  such,  in  our  National  Senate, 
we  need  to  constitute  that  body  the  bouse  of  repre- 
entation  for  something  else  than  Stateship— just  as 
he  "Lower  House"  is  the  house  of  representation 
or  all  the  people.  Fortunately,  we  are  able  to  har- 
monize two  rery  important  classes  of  political  views 


[13] 


by  this  change,  which  otherwise  would  be  at  war  one 
with  the  other,  and  politicians  already  have  arrayed 
them  opposively  as  incompatible.  They  can  be  har- 
monized—viz:  While  the  House  of  Representatives 
should  be  what  its  name  denotes,  the  house  of  repre- 
sentation for  all  the  people  (however  poor  and  how- 
ever ignorant,  and  as  such,  more  in  need  than  others 
of  such  protection  by  the  Government  as  direct  repre- 
sentation alone  can  secure),  the  Senate  should  also  be 
what  its  name  denotes,  the  house  of  representation 
for  the  wisdom  or  intelligence  of  the  people  in  each 
State,  and  under  such  a  system  of  representation  we 
might  reasonably  look  for  the  legislation  of  the  coun- 
try to  be  a  happy  blending  of  justice  and  humanity 
with  wisdom  and  enlargedness  of  view. 

To  secure  this  desirable  end  the  following  measures 
would  be  needful : 

1.  The  ordaining  that  the  qualifications  of  voters  for 
Senators  should  be,  in  addition  to  their  qualifications 
as  voters  for  Congressmen,  the  attainment  of  the  age 
of  thirty  years,  if  unmarried,  or  twenty-five  years,  if 
married. 

2.  In  addition  to  the  above,  the  attainment  of  a 
certain  degree  of  education,  to  be  from  time  to  tune 
prescribed  by  Congress,  the  method  of  determining 
which  should  be  by  public  written  examination,  either 
upon  graduation  from  the  public  schools  or  upon  semi- 
annual occasions  appointed  in  each  district  (under  the 
supervision  of  public  school  teachers)  by  the  Secretary 
of  Public  Instruction  and  Public  Libraries,  who  should 
be  a  Cabinet  officer. 

8.  The  appointment  of  Senatorial  elections  at  dif- 
ferent times  from  elections  for  Congressmen. 

4.  The  establishment,  either  of  a  national  system 
of  public  schools,  maintained  at  the  national  ex- 
pense, or  a  system  of  State  public  schools,  rendered 
efficient  and  uniform  throughout  the  nation  by  the 
uniformity  of  the  State  Constitutions  ordained  by  Con- 
gress. Such  a  system  should  provide  evening  schools 
for  adults  as  well  as  day  schools  for  children,  together 
with  an  adequate  number  of  orphan  homes  in  each 
State,  with  schools  attached,  to  the  custody  of  which 
should  be  remanded,  not  only  unprovided  for  orphans, 
but  all  other  children  who  are  not  kept  punctually  at 
other  schools,  or  at  useful  occupations  when  over  a 
certain  age  by  their  parents.  The  power  of  becoming 
a  voter  for  Senators,  as  well  as  for  Representatives, 
would  thus  be  placed  within  the  reach  of  all,  and  in 
one  generation  the  difference  between  voters  for  Sen- 
ators and  Representatives  would  be  reduced,  as  a  gen- 
eral thing,  to  a  difference  of  age,  while  at  the  same 
time  the  unsectarian  public  school  would  be  legally 
recognized  to  be  what  it  is  in  iact,  a  political  necessity 
to  the  permai  ence  of  the  Republic,  and  as  such,  an  in- 
stitution to  be  most  jealously  guarded,  encouraged  and 
fostered. 

Yvhile  we  have  no  right  to  suppress  sectarian  schools 
as  dangerous  in  their  tendency,  and  while  it  might  be 
deemed  governmental  interference  with  religion  to 
compel  all  such  schools  to  conduct  public  instruction 
In  accordance  with  the  general  regulations  of  the  Gov- 
ernment for  that  purpose,  it  certainly  is  gross  derelic- 
tion of  the  Government  not  to  provide  such  necessi- 
ties as  Orphan  Homes,  thereby  burdening  the  benevo- 


lent or  inciting  religious  societies  to  do  what  the  Gov- 
ernment alone  ought  to  do,  and  making  a  very  good 
ground  for  claim  by  such  religious  societies  upon  the 
State  for  the  appropriation  to  them  of  moneys.  If 
there  is  any  one  idea  more  fixed  than  another  in  the 
public  mind  of  America,  it  is  that  all  institutions 
which  either  are  designed  to,  or  which  actually  do 
teach  or  disseminate  religion,  must  be  maintained  ex- 
clusively by  the  voluntary  contributions  of  the  people, 
and  in  no  case  must  their  support  be  taxed  out  of 
either  the  people  by  a  poll-tax,  or  out  of  their  property 
by  a  per  cent.  tax.  If  it  be  true  that  such  religious 
societies  have  been  attending  to  the  duty  of  the  State, 
and  therefore  should  receive  the  money  of  the  State, 
let  that  fact  excuse  past  donations  to  religious  chari- 
ties, but  it  cannot  justify  us,  under  our  new  Govern- 
ment, in  any  such  further  neglect  of  one  duty  as  must 
be  made  up  for  by  doing  violence  to  the  sentiment  of 
the  land  as  well  as  to  that  sound  principle  which  ordains 
the  absolute  and  utter  independence  of  religion  from 
the  State.  Orphan  homes,  as  well  as  asylums  tor  the 
aged  and  infirm,  are  as  much  necessities  which  the 
Government  should  provide  as  are  Schools,  Hospitals, 
Insane  Asylums,  Workhouses  and  Prisons.  And  the 
unwisdom  of  any  such  course  of  Public  School  man- 
agement as  compels  Roman  Catholics  and  Jews  to  open 
special  schools  of  their  own  is  a  flagrant  wrong  and  in- 
justice to  such  citizens  which  they  should  have  the 
power  to  prevent.  But  the  Public  School  and  its  man- 
agement generally  is  here  alluded  to,  not  to  discuss 
the  respective  rights  of  Deists  and  Christians  in  our 
schools,  but  to  place  it  in  its  true  position  as  part  of  a 
plan  needful  lor  perpetuating  our  republican  institu- 
tions, and  for  securing  to  intelligence,  education  and 
experience  that  important  voice  it  ought  to  possess, 
without  denying  to  even  the  most  unlettered  that  rep- 
resentation and  voice  to  which  as  part  of  the  governed 
people  they  are  entitled. 

Twelfth— The  qualifications  prescribed  by  Congress 
for  voters,  in  order  to  elect  National  Representatives, 
should  entitle  such  voters  to  elect  State  legislators, 
nor  should  any  other  qualifications  be  permitted — 
moreover  the  vote  for  State  and  National  Representa- 
tives should  be  deposited  at  one  and  the  same  time, 
which  day  of  election  should  be  uniform  throughout 
the  nation,  on  which  occasion,  also,  the  vote  for  Presi- 
dent should  be  cast.  In  like  manner  the  Congression- 
ally  ordained  qualifications  of  voters  for  National  Sen- 
ators, and  none  others,  should  entitle  such  voters  to  a 
voice  in  the  election  of  State  Senators,  and  the  votes 
for  these  two  officers  should  be  cast  at  the  same  time, 
and  one  month  later  than  the  election  for  Representa- 
tives. So,  also,  the  qualifications  required  by  Congress 
to  vote  for  Representatives  and  President  should  be 
sufficient  and  necessary  to  secure  a  vote  for  the  Gov- 
ernor of  any  State ;  but  if  Congress  should  ever  see  fit 
to  require  special  qualifications  in  order  to  vote  for 
President,  for  instance  a  property  qualification,  a 
third  election  day  would  need  to  be  ordained  for  the 
election  of  President  and  .Governor,  the  votes  for 
which  two  officers  should  be  cast  at  the  same  time  and 
the  day  be  uniform  throughout  the  land. 

The  very  reverse  of  all  this  now  is  true.  No  one 
can  now  vote  for  Congressman,  according  to  our  Con* 


[14] 


Btitution,  except  those  who  by  permission  of  the  vari- 
ous States  are  entitled  to  vote  for  State  Representatives. 
In  this  way  loyal  citizens  cf  the  nation  may  be  de- 
barred a  vote  for  Congressmen,  while  an  unnaturalized 
alien,  an  insolent  Mormon  or  a  hostile  rebel  may  be 
endowed  with  such  a  right.  It  is  part  of  that  unique 
attempt  of  our  forefathers  to  create  a  General  Govern- 
ment without  creating  a  perfect  nation,  endowed,  as 
every  nation  is  and  of  necessity  must  be,  with  absolute 
supremacy  and  sole  sovereignty.  The  oppressions  of 
Britain  upon  her  American  colonies  begat  on  the  part 
of  the  peaple  of  the  colonies  a  very  natural  dread  of 
any  power  superior  to  their  own,  so  that  they  were 
willing  to  form  only  such  a  nation  as  should  leave  the 
determination  of  vital  national  powers  with  each  State 
Government — votership  for  Congressmen,  for  instance 
—and  State  equality  in  the  Senate,  and  inequality  of 
representation  for  Presidential  elections  by  the  device 
of  the  Electoral  College.  Experience,  however,  having 
demonstrated  the  insufficiency  of  such  a  partial  Na- 
tional Government  and  the  groundlessness  for  just  fears 
of  perfect  nationality,  as  a  new  declaration  to  the 
world  of  revolution,  when  we  assume  that  complete,  per- 
fect and  unambiguous  nationality  in  our  Constitution 
which,  by  a  general  declaration  of  independence  and 
subsequent  outward  acts,  we  long  since  assumed  among 
the  nations  of  the  earth,  (and  thereby  developed  from 
allied,  confederated  and  united  colonists  to  one  nation 
in  sentiment,  before  we  became  fully  and  perfectly  a 
nation  in  our  fundamental  law),  we  must  reverse  the 
order  of  our  fathers  and  base  the  government  of  the 
nation  directly  and  solely  upon  the  will  of  the  gov. 
erned  people  within  the  national  domains,  regarded  as 
a  whole,  and  base  the  State  Governments,  not  exclu- 
sively upon  the  will  of  the  State  citizens,  but  primarily 
upon  the  will  of  the  nation,  any  one  of  whose  citizens 
has  a  right  to  all  the  privileges  of  citizenship  in  each 
State. 

Thirteenth— Owing  to  the  telegraph  and  to  steam, 
as  the  world  now  lives  as  much  in  one  year  as  for- 
merly it  did  in  two,  the  term  for  tenure  of  office  by  both 
legislators  and  our  Chief  Executives  should  be  con- 
formed to  the  times  in  which  we  live.  Our  Represent- 
atives should  hold  office  only  one  year,  which  would 
require  annual  elections  for  them.  Our  Senators 
should  hold  office  for  three  years,  one  Senator  being 
elected  every  year,  while  two  would  hold  over — the 
number  of  Senators  for  each  State  being  three  under 
the  new  Constitution  instead  of  two  under  the  present. 
The  Presidential  and  Gubernatorial  term  should  be  two 
years,  and  no  President  should  be  eligible  tore-election 
who  has  served  three  Presidential  terms,  whether  con 
secutive  or  not. 

Fourteenth — "I  am  a  Roman  citizen,"  is  a  sentence 
that  once  commanded  the  respect  of  the  world.  11 
was  talismanic— no  monarch,  even,  dare  molest  the 
citizen  of  Rome.  "  I  am  an  American  citizen ' 
is  a  talismanic  utterance  yet  destined  to  thrill  man 
kind  with  friendly  awe.  The  time  has  even  now  come 
when  throughout  this  continent  it  should  comman 
respect  and  safety,  while  at  no  distant  day  no  more 
potent  document  will  ever  issue  from  our  Departmen 
of  State  than  that  certificate  of  citizenship  in  the 
(Treat  Republic  of  America,  issued,  as  it  should  be,  to 


all  citizens  (whether  native-born  or  naturalized),  and 
bearing  the  nation's  Great  Seal.    Without  such  certifi- 
cate, each  tenth  year  renewed  upon  fresh  oath  of  loy- 
Ity,  no  one  should  be  allowed  to  vote,  at  any  election, 
<T  to  sit  upon  any  jury,  State  or  National. 
Such    certificates,  each    bearing   its  own    number, 
hould  be  the  basis  of  a  national  system  of  registry,  to 
>e  kept  at  the  seat  of  Government,  as  an  adjunct  of 
he  Census  Bureau;  for  as  the  only  rightful  source  of 
authority  for  all  human  government  is  the  constitu- 
ionally  expressed  will  of  the  governed  themselves, 
t  is  fundamentally  important  that   the  methods  of 
ascertaining  the  will  of  the  governed  should  be  the 
most  perfect  which  it  is  possible  to  devise. 

The  national  registry  should  be  so  kept  that  poll 
ists  for  every  election  district  could  be  prepared  from 
t,  designating  the  voters  of  the  district  by  name,  ag«, 
number  and  such  other  marks  for  identification  as  ex- 
perience should  show  to  be  desirable  and  practicable. 
To  facilitate  the  formation,  perfection  and  preserva- 
tion in  efficiency  of  such  a  registiy,  the  Assessors 
oi  each  election  district  should  be  constituted  ea>  qfficio 
registry  officers,  and  in  their  offices,  under  adequate 
penalties  for  neglect,  every  birth,  naturalization, 
death  and  criminal  conviction  should  be  recorded,  to 
be  by  that  office  transmitted  to  the  Beat  of  national 
government  for  registration. 

A  criminal  conviction,  under  which  the  criminal 
might  be  sentenced  to  imprisonment  for  a  year,  should 
render  new  naturalization  needful,  the  beginning  of 
the  naturalization  term  to  date  from  the  discharge  of 
the  prisoner ;  at  which  time,  also,  he  should  be  privi- 
leged to  assume  a  new  name.  No  pardon  by  either  a 
Governor  or  a  President  should  be  able  to  remove 
their  legal  necessity  for  renaturalization  in  order  to 
vote  and  sit  on  juries ;  and  the  new  certificate  of  citi- 
zenship for  such  citizen,  whether  he  assumes  a  new 
name  or  not,  should  bear  a  new  registry  number,  the 
previous  number  being  canceled  upon  criminal  convic- 
tion as  if  he  had  died. 

When  a  voter  should  remove  from  one  election  dis- 
trict, either  out  of  the  country  or  into  a  new  election 
district,  he  should  be  required  to  record  that  fact  with 
the  Assessor  of  his  late  election  district,  and  a  certifi- 
cate of  the  same,  duly  authenticated,  should  be  issued 
to  him,  without  cost ;  which  should  be  surrendered  to 
the  Assessor  in  the  new  election  district,  while  both 
Assessors  should  immediately  apprise  the  Census  Bu- 
reau of  the  issuance  or  receipt  of  the  same. 

Certificates  of  removals,  by  simply  reciting  the 
number  of  the  applicant's  certificate  of  citizenship,  in 
addition  to  his  name,  could  speedily  and  certainly  be 
traced,  even  if  a  hundred  of  Smiths,  Browns  and 
Joneses,  and  all  of  them  Johns  at  that,  decided  simul- 
taneously to  change  their  voting  residences. 

To  prevent  delay  at  the  polls,  the  right  to  deposit  a 
vote  should  depend  solely  upon  the  surrender  to  the 
officers  of  election  of  an  Assessor's  permit  to  vote, 
which  permits  should  be  issued  in  accordance  with  the 
following  rules : 

1.  No  Assessor  should  issue  a  permit  to  any  one 
whose  name  is  not  officially  returned  to  him  from  the 
seat  of  government  as  a  voter  in  a  district  over  which 
he  presides. 


[15] 


2.  No  permit  should  issue  except  upon  presentation 
to  the  Assessor  lor  inspection,  of  the  voter's  certificate 
of  national  citizenship,  at  least  one  month  before  any 
electirn. 

8.  No  permit  to  vote  should  be  issued  until  the  ap- 
plicant had  solemnly  affirmed  (incurring  the  penalties 
of  perjury  if  convicted  of  willfully  false  affirmation)  to 
some  such  pledge  as  the  following : 

44 1,  John  Smith,  do  solemnly  affirm  before  Thomas 
Brown,  the  lawful  Assessor  of  the  One  Hundred  and 
Thirteenth  Election  District  of  the  Great  Republic  of 
America,  that  I  am  the  person  described  in  the  na- 
tional certificate  of  citizenship  (numbered  as  123  4 
5  6  7),  by  me  submitted  to  his  inspection,  and  that  to 
the  best  of  my  knowledge  and  belief  I  am  lawfully  en- 
titled to  vote  at  the  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-third 
election,  to  be  held  on  the  first  Tuesday  in  June,  1878, 
at  the  polls  of  the  One  Hundred  and  Thirtieth  Election 
District.  Ar.d  I  hereby  solemnly  pledge  myself  that 
my  votes  then  and  there  to  be  deposited  shall  not  be 
influenced  by  any  consideration  of  special  personal  ad- 
vantage or  gratification  to  myself,  at  that  time,  past, 
present,  or  to  come  ;  and  especially  do  I  pledge  mytelf 
to  my  fellow  citizens,  to  the  Government  and  to  man- 
kind to  allow  no  hope  of  personal  gain  to  influence 
either  of  the  votes  I  shall  be  entitled  to  cast,  whether 
such  gain  be  direct  or  contingent,  or  whether  it  be  a 
gain  of  money,  other  property,  or  interests  in  prop- 
erty, or  a  gain  of  some  position,  or  office  of  profit, 
trust  or  honor.  On  the  contrary,  I  hereby  solemnly 
affirm,  invoking  all  the  penalties  of  perjury  for  false- 
hood, that  my  vote  shall  be  given,  for  whcm  it  maybe, 
solely  because,  in  my  best  judgment,  aiter  all  due 
efforts  to  acquaint  myself  with  the  considerations 
which  have  a  proper  bearing  in  the  case,  I  believe  their 
election  to  the  respective  offices  for  which  they  shall  be 
designated  will  best  subserve  the  public  good  and  se- 
cure the  welfare  of  all  the  people,  as  well  as  tend  to  the 
improvement  and  perpetuation  of  the  benefits  of  self- 
government  for  ourselves,  for  our  posterity  and  tor  all 
mankind." 

4.  Every  citizen  should  pay  to  the  Assessor  a  poll 
tax  at  or  before  the  time  of  receiving  his  permit  to 
vote.    This  tax  should  be  uniform  throughout  the  land, 
and  its  amount  should  be  determined  by  Congress,  or 
by  assessment  in  pursuance  of  Congressional  law.  The 
neclect  of  any  citizen  to  take  out  his  voting  permit 
should  subject  him  to  the  payment  of  four  times  the 
amount  of  the  poll  tax  ;  and  the  neglect  of  aliens  or 
discharged  criminals  to  institute  steps  for  naturaliza- 
tion should  subject  them  to  the  payment  of  a  like 
amount,  which  should  be  collected  under  such  penal- 
ties as  Congress  might  find  necessary. 

5.  It  should  not  be  essential  to  voting  that  the  voter 
should  personally  deposit  his  or  her  own  vote.    If  in- 
convenient or  distasteful  to  any  voter  to  goto  the  polls, 
if  able  to  write,  he  should  be  required  to  sign  his  bal- 
lot and  inclose  it,  together  with  his  or  her  permit,  and 
address  it  to  the  officers  of  election,  who,  on  opening 
It,  should  compare  the  signature  on  the  ballot  with  the 
signature  which  the  Assessor  should  always  require  to 
be  given  (by  all  who  are  able  to  write)  on  the  back  of 
the  permit  to  vote  when  he  issues  it.    The  bearer  of 
such  a  vote  should  be  entitled  to  see  it  opened  and  de- 


posited in  the  ballot-box  as  if  it  were  his  own  vote. 

|  Parties  not  able  to  write  should  be  obliged  personally 

;  to  deposit  their  own  ballots. 

6.  To  lessen  the  opportunities  for  fraud  in  the  elec- 

i  tions,  every  voter  should  have  the  right  of  signing  his 
own  ballot,  though  it  should  not  be  obligatory  on  any 
one  to  affix  his  name  who  prefers  to  maintain  the  pri- 
vacy of  his  vote. 

The  vital  and  fundamental  Importance  of  some  such 
system  of  national  registry  and  voting  as  the  forego- 
ing  becomes  more  and  more  apparent  when  we  ponder 
methods  cf  cure  for  the  atrocities  committed  in  the 
States  and  Territories  since  the  war.  The  Memphis 
and  New  Orleans  massacres  are  illustrations  of  what 
may  be  done  even  by  the  officials  ol  a  local  Govern- 
ment when  votership  and  jury  rights  are  determined, 
not  by  the  nation  as  a  whole,  but  by  a  local  assumption 
of  an  exclusive  right  to  govern  by  any  class  of  a  State 
|  or  municipality.  The  need  becomes  more  apparent  when 
I  we  see  our  Supreme  Court  annulling  test  oaths  designed 
I  to  secure  Loyalty  to  the  nation  its  due  voice  and  power 
in  the  government  of  the  States.  With  the  qualifications 
of  all  voters  and  jurors  determined  by  the  National  Gov- 
ernment, no  such  acts  as  threatened  Baltimore  with 
blood  and  carnaere  could  recur,  nor  could  the  peace  of 
Missouri  be  imperiled  or  the  lives  of  the  heroes  of  Ten- 
nessee be  endangered  for  simple  fidelity  to  the  national 
cau?e  and  for  the  support  of  the  only  truly  loyal  State 
Government  of  the  South.  Neither  could  the  high- 
handed outrages  so  long  perpetrated  in  Utah  be  pro- 
longed if  both  voters  and  jurors  were  determined  by 
national  law  and  the  poll  lists  were  furnished  by  the 
National  Bureau  of  the  Census. 

Fifteenth — Representation  in  Congress  should  be 
proper l ioned  to  the  number  of  voters  in  each  State, 
and  the  State  Legislature  should  be  required  so  to  di- 
vide the  State  into  election  districcs  corresponding  to 
the  number  of  Congressmen,  that  each  district,  as  nearly 
as  may  be  practicable,  should  con  tain  an  equal  number 
of  voters,  the  basis  of  such  numbering  to  be  the  na- 
tional census.  Such  districting  laws  should  require 
the  ratification  of  the  national  Senate  in  order  to  va- 
lidity. 

Sixteenth — Under  our  present  Constitution  direct 
taxes  are  imposable  by  the  nation  only  in  proportion 
to  State  repiesentation,  and  with  no  regard  whatever 
to  value.  This  grew  out  of  slavery,  just  as  the  Presi- 
dential Electoral  College  did,  and  with  the  abolition  of 
slavery  both  of  these  fungi  should  be  rooted  out. 
Under  the  new  nation  dhect  taxes  should  be  assessed 
upon  all  property  in  the  nation,  real  and  personal  (in- 
cluding all  stocks  and  bonds),  in  proportion  to  its 
market  value,  and  should  in  no  wise  be  connected 
with  the  number  of  inhabitants  or  voters  in  any  State, 
except  that  during  such  tranquility  within  any  State 
as  in  the  judgment  of  Congress  requires  no  national 
force  to  secure  it,  each  State  should  annually  receive 
from  the  national  treasury,  for  the  purpose  of  defray- 
ing the  expenses  of  the  State  Government,  a  share  of  a 
general  appropriation  by  Congress,  which  should  be 
proportioned  to  the  number  of  voters  in  each  State  as 
compared  with  all  the  voters  in  the  nation;  and  in 
order  to  render  State  dependence  effectual,  as  well  as 


[16] 


State  economy  both  uniform  and  necessary,  no  State 
should  be  allowed  any  other  source  of  revenue  than  its 
due  share  of  the  annual  appropriation  of  Congress 
while  the  nation  should  assume  the  legitimate  debt  o 
every  State  and  provide  for  its  extinction. 

Seventeenth — Taxes,  except  for  municipal  and  county 
purposes,  should  be  assessed  and  collected  solely  by 
the  nation,  and  should  be  derived  exclusively  from— 

1.  Business  licenses,  proportioned  in  amount  to  cap- 
ital invested,  the  professions  being  taxed  in  proportion 
to  an  assessed  average  cost  of  preparation,  in  addition 
to  the  returned  vatue  of  a  professional  library.    No 
municipality  should  be  allowed  to  exact  in  addition 
other  charges  or  .fees  for  the  issuance  of  a  municipal 
license  to  do  business. 

2.  Prom  an  income  tax,  which  should  be  so  framed 
as  to  obviate  all  need  of  a  troublesome  and  perilous 
use  of  revenue  stamps,  in  variable  values.    Such  a 
Stamp  law  requires  both  an  impracticable  knowledge 
and  memory  of  arbitrary  sums,  which  sums,  if  not 
affixed    by  stamps  and    canceled  according   to  law, 
Invalidates  a  naturally  just  and  proper  business  trans- 
action, and  that,  too,  even  when  such  revenue  stamps 
as  the  law  enjoins  are  not  to  be  obtained,  and  renders 
the  transaction  criminal  besides.    Not  only  in  a  busi- 
ness point  of  view,  but  nationally,  Americans  should 
traditionally  loathe  even  the  semblance  of  a  Stamp  Act. 

8.  A  manufacturers  and  producers'  tax,  imposable 
only  when  the  manufactured  goods  or  the  commodities 
produced  from  either  mines  or  soil  are  sold.  In  no 
other  way  can  the  people  who  are  exempt  from  an 
income  tax  as  too  poor  to  pay  any,  so  effectually  and 
equally  contribute  their  just  proportion  to  the  support 
of  the  Government ;  for  a  uniform  ad  valorem  tax  on 
manufactures  and  products  would  raise  the  price  of  all 
goods  and  provisions  consumed,  and  those  who  pur- 
chase for  their  own  use  would  in  reality  pay  the  tax 
originally  collected  of  the  producer. 

4.  Direct  taxes  upon  the  marketable  value  of  real 
estate,  whether  productive  or  not.  Large  land  owners, 
if  taxed  upon  their  unproductive  lands,  would  be  com- 
pelled either  to  improve  or  sell,  or  both,  to  the  great 
advantage  of  the  people,  as  well  as  of  the  Government. 

5.  Taxation  upon  personal  property,  which,  owing 
to  its  requiring    greater    outlay   by  Government  for 
its  protection  than  real  estate,  should  pay  a  greater 
per  cent,   cf  taxation.     Moreover,  to  impose    some 
check  upon  the  incurring  of  public  expenses,  for  which, 
under  present  regulations,  property  only  is    taxed, 
some  definite  relation  should  be  ordained  between  the 
money  taxed  out  of  real  estate  and  that  raised  by  poll 
tax,  so  that  the  increase  of  taxation  on  property  would 
also  increase  the  poll  tax. 

6.  Poll  tax  or  Personal  Protection  tax  to  be  collected 
of  every  one,  whether  a  voter  or  not. 

1.  Taxation  upon  all  manufactured  imports,  and 
upon  all  imported  raw  materials  which  can  be  produced 
within  the  national  boundaries. 

8.  A  Transportation  tax  upon  all  manufactured 
goods,  to  be  collected  of  the  manufacturer,  when  such 
goods  are  sold  to  parties  beyond  the  limits  of  untaxa- 
ble  transportation. 

Eighteenth — In  order  to  secure  a  more  abundant  em- 
>loyment  for  all  the  people,  at  such  wages  as  an  urgent 


demand  for  labor  alone  can  legitimately  secure,  and 
thereby  furnish  every  farmer,  near  his  own  farm,  pur- 
chasers of  his  farming  produce,  such  stable  protection 
to  manufactures  should  be  devised  and  enforced  as 
would  encourage  and  secure  so  large  an  investment  of 
capital,  that  while  labor  would  be  greatly  in  demand, 
competition  among  manufacturers  would  keep  the 
prices  of  manufactured  goods  at  the  lowest  possible 
figure  for  all  consumers  which  is  consistent  with  the 
exemption  of  home  manufactures  from  competition 
with  foreign  labor,  which  is  so  poorly  paid  that 
American  capital  cannot  successfully  compete  with 
it  except  by  payment  of  starvation  wages  to  American 
operatives.  That  such  protection  should  not  be 
purely  local,  but  should  benefit  all  sections  alike,  by 
begetting  diversified  industries  in  all  parts  of  the  land, 
not  only  should  import  taxes  be  imposed  on  goods 
of  foreign  manufacture,  but  an  adequate  internal  trans- 
port tax  should  be  imposed  on  all  manufactured  goods, 
American  and  foreign  alike,  when  sold  to  or  ior  parties 
who  reside  more  distant  than  one  thousand  miles  by 
sea,  or  five  hundred  miles  by  road  or  river  transporta- 
tion, from  the  place  of  manufacture  or  original  storage. 
In  no  other  way  can  the  interests,  as  well  as  the  senti- 
ments of  the  people  of  the  land  be  rendered  similar, 
breaking  up  that  sectional  opposition  of  interests  which 
alternately  enriches  and  ruins  the  most  enterprising 
and  useful  men  of  the  nation  and  throws  out  of  em- 
ployment thousands  upon  thousands  of  skilled  opera- 
tives, as  the  manufacturing  interest,  or  the  importing 
and  planting  interests  combine  for  ascendency  in  Con- 
gress. It  is  idle  to  talk  against  sectionality  while  we 
eave  its  roots  and  causes  both  vital  and  operative. 

Nineteenth — While  our  own  country,  to  a  greater 
extent  than  any  other,  is  the  producer  of  gold  and 
silver —  the  world's  materials  for  the  manufacture 
of  money  — as  a  nation,  for  six  years  we  have 
been  destitute  of  gold  and  silver  money,  and 
but  for  the  staunch  loyalty  of  the  people  to  the 
nation,  rendering  the  issuance  of  paper  legal  ten- 
ders practicable,  it  would  have  been  impossible 
for  either  the  people  or  the  nation  to  do  business 
on  any  other  than  the  most  contracted  scale,  which 
fact,  when  the  rebellion  broke  out,  would  have  secured 
ts  triumph.  The  reason  was,  there  was  not  real  money 
enough  in  the  country  to  justify  the  capitalists  of  the 
and  in  loaning  to  the  Government  as  much  as  the 
national  necessities  required.  There  was  plenty  of 
property  but  not  plenty  of  gold.  To  prevent  the  re- 
currence of  such  an  evil,  and  to  render  a  resort  to 
greenbacks  in  the  future  needless,  and  at  the  same 
ime  to  cheapen  the  price  or  lessen  the  interest  of 
money  in  America,  and  thereby  stimulate  enterprise 
and  create  a  greater  demand  for  labor,  the  protection 
)f  manufactures  should  be  linked  with  the  protection 
>f  a  metallic  currency  for  the  land  (or  its  paper  repre- 
entative,  at  all  times  convertible),  which  can  be  done 
>y  requiring  the  value  of  exports,  exclusive  of  gold 
nd  silver,  at  all  times  to  be  at  least  equal  to  the  value 
of  imports  including  gold  and  silver. 

To  accomplish  both  of  these  important  ends  the  de- 
ising  of  our  tariff  of  import  duties  would  need  to  be 
ntrusted  to  a  Board  of  Industrial  and  Money  Guardi- 
ns,  say  thirteen  in  number,  to  be  elected  either  by  the 


[17] 


people  direct,  when  voting  for  President,  or  by  their 
representatives  in  Congress.  After  the  first  organiza- 
tion of  the  Board  one  new  Guardian  should  be  elected 
annually. 

It  should  be  their  duty  to  collect  such  authentic  in- 
formation as  would  enable  them  to  determine  what 
specific  tax  on  various  manufactured  goods,  if  imposed 
upon  their  importation,  would  render  the  cost  to  im- 
porters, at  the  most  advantageous  port  of  entry  in  the 
Republic,  two  per  cent,  greater  than  the  lowest  stated 
and  regular  Araeric&n  manufacturers'  prices  to  their 
customers  for  similar  goods  delivered  at  the  same 
place.  Such  tax,  when  ascertained  by  the  Board  of 
Guardians,  without  option,  should  be  entered  upon  the 
import  tax  list ;  but  written  and  sworn  evidence,  either 
from  manufacturers  or  importers,  designed  to  correct 
false  information,  should  at  all  times  be  admissible 
before  the  Board  of  Guardians,  who  should  keep  a  de- 
tailed record  of  their  proceedings,  at  all  times  accessible 
to  members  of  Congress  and  to  authorized  representa- 
tives of  the  press.  This  modifiable  tariff  of  import 
taxes,  so  formed,  should  be  termed  the  normal  tariff  of 
the  people. 

For  the  purpose  of  increasing  the  revenue  by  Cus- 
toms, Congress  should  have  power  to  ordain  a  uniform 
per  cent,  increase  upon  the  normal  tariff,  or  upon  any 
particular  schedule  or  classification  therein,  ordained 
by  them  to  be  kept  by  the  Board  of  Guardians,  which 
per  cent,  increase  should  be  repealable  only  by  Con- 
gress, although  Congress  should  have  no  power  to 
modify  the  normal  tariff  itself  except  by  a  three-fourths 
vote. 

It  should  be  the  further  duty  of  the  Board  of  Guar- 
dians, without  option,  whenever  the  foreign  gold  value 
of  imports,  during  any  month,  should  exceed  the  home 
gold  value  of  exports,  both  ascertained  in  accordance 
with  regulations  of  the  Board,  to  ordain  a  series  of 
special  and  uniform  per  cent,  enlargements  of  such 
items  in  the  normal  tariff  as  Congress  should  ordain  to 
be  classified  as  luxurious  (such  as  silks,  laces,  wines, 
etc.),  which  enlargements  should  not  be  diminished  or 
rescinded  until  the  value  of  exports  (gold  and  silver 
being  excluded  from  view)  should  equal  the  value  of 
imports,  gold  and  silver  included.  Telegraphic  returns 
from  the  Custom-houses  could  furnish  the  needful 
monthly  data,  and  orders  by  telegraph  to  the  Cus- 
tom-houses could  be  forwarded  which  would  render 
the  plan  effective. 

In  this  way  the  gold  and  silver  produced  in  America, 
hitherto  chiefly  for  the  enrichment  of  Europe  and 
Asia  in  the  item  of  money,  no  less  than  the  good  for- 
tune of  large  crops  with  concurrent  high  prices  abroad, 
would  not  only  go  to  the  enrichment  of  the  nation  in 
the  way  it  now  does,  but  more  rapidly,  by  enriching 
us  in  that  very  item  of  wealth  of  which  we  have  most 
pressing  need,  and  the  lack  of  which  renders  even  an 
Inconvertible  paper  currency  a  necessity  to  commer- 
cial and  industrial  life  in  the  greatest  area  of  the  na- 
tion, although  at  the  same  time  it  deranges  that  just 
idea  of  values  which  is  alone  to  be  derived  from  coin 
quotations. 

It  is  as  essential  to  the  national  vigor,  and  to  a  solid, 
permanent  and  healthful  prosperity  of  the  people,  that 
their  money  system  shall  be  both  uniform  throughout 


the  land  and  that  it  shall  be  the  best  which  it  L 
ble  to  devise,  as  it  is  that  money  should  be  so  abm 
in  comparison  with  other  property,  as  to  be  obta.  .a*. 
at  a  low  rate  of  interest,  both  by  the  Government  and 
the  people. 

With  all  the  unlimited  powers  which  of  necessity 
pertain  to  a  sovereign  State,  curbed  only  by  such  re- 
strictions in  favor  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  peo- 
ple as  our  present  Constitution  contains,  by  enacting 
for  our  New  Nation  a  new  National  Charter,  which 
should  embody  some  such  as  the  foregoing  fundamental 
features,  we  should  become  in  fundamental  law,  what 
we  only  are  in  fact,  a  nation  ;  and  a  nation,  too.. ami- 
nental  in  its  spread,  colossal  in  its  maltty  of  excel- 
lence and  might,  and  omnipotent  i5r  the  protection  of 
all,  while  yet  omnipresent  fovthe  defense  of  each,  and 
specially  and  paternally  mind. ol  oVt»*. ignorant  and 
poor,  the  widow  aed  the  fatherless,  and  wituall  its 
own  adorable  beneficence,  the  National  Government 
would  be  supplemented  and  filled,  out  with  a  series  of 
similar  and  uniform  local  Governments,  with  only  less 
general  objects,  but  charged  with  such  more  particular 
functions  of  good  for  each  and  all  as  the  nation  specifi- 
cally ordains  and  confers.  And,  with  each  and 
Government  of  the  land  purified  of  corruption  by  render- 
ing it  the  first  interest>f  each  civil  officer  to  be  fetthful 
to  the  people's  law  respecting  his  own  duties,  in  order  to 
retain  his  post,  the  fulfillment  will  have  been  begun  oj 
Daniel's  vision,  in  which  he  saw  the  Kingdoms  and 
Empires  of  the  world  broken  "to  pieces  by  a  new  and 
different  kind  of  Government  which  grew  to  fill  the 
whole  world— and  then  shall  the  dream  of  the  op- 
pressed in  all  ages  be  realized,  that  in  the  latter  days 
the  God  of  Heaven  will  set  up  a  kingdom  on  the  earth 
which  shall  never  be  destroyed,  in  which  Truth  and 
Right,  sole  monarchs  of  the  realm,  immortally  shall 
reign  in  Law,  and  the  will  of  God  be  done  on  earth, 
even  as  it  is  in  Heaven.  Then  will  the  time  have  come 
for  the  nations  to  beat  their  swords  into  plowshares 
and  make  pruning  hooks  of  spears,  and  in  deed  and. 
truth,  not  the  mighty,  but  the  meek,  shall  inherit  the 
earth,  while  Peace,  smiling  through  all  industrial 
arts,  gives  each  that  daily  bread  for  which  the 
world  now  prays,  and  Plenty  pours  profusion  in  the 
nation's  lap,  and  stores  each  garner  full,  while  Art 
ideal,  with  true  magician's  spell,  uplifts  and  spiritual- 
izes the  very  nature  of  man,  till  it  seems  she  tints 
light  to  softness,  and  scents  the  air  with  fragrance,  as 
she  carpets  the  earth  with  verdure,  and  silvers  the 
streams  and  lakes  to  mirror  sheen,  that  they  may  re- 
flect the  majesty  of  gray  peaks,  tipped  by  her  fairy  pen. 
cil  to  golden  hue,  till,  instead  of  a  garden  in  Asia,  lost, 
the  whole  wide  world  shall  seem  Paradise  regained, 
wherein  the  little  child  shall  lead  the  leopard  and  the 
lion  protect  the  lamb,  while  men  wonder  if  history  can 
be  true  that  tells  of  human  carnage  and  vast  fields  of 
blood ;  but  while  they  wonder  they  shall  hear  from 
Heaven  a  voice,  as  from  the  throne  of  God,  enshrined 
in  the  golden  glory  of  an  evening  sky,  uttering  this 
key  to  human  history : 

1  Through  oppression  and  wrong,  through  suflferinir 
and  blood,  through  intelligence  and  hope,  only 
come  upon  tne  world,  self-government  for  man,  the 
Kingdom  or  Government  of  Heaven." 


- 
- 


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